Bowl Season By The Numbers

College football season went out with a bang! Even though there were only four teams competing for the National Championship, there were 41 bowl games that brought excitement to the final weeks of the season. Major brands sponsor bowl games to create exposure at the game, on broadcasts, and on social media.

College Football Playoff Follower Ranking

Colleges pour massive amounts of money into their football programs in order to reach the College Football Playoff (CFP). The exposure for universities alone makes the CFP a valuable goal. Using Blinkfire’s Media Kit, we looked at the four CFP teams and ranked them based on new followers and growth rate since the teams were announced on December 4 through the day after the championship on January 10.

CFP Championship Exposure

For the second year in a row, the University of Georgia was crowned National Champions, this time in convincing fashion. The Bulldogs defeated the TCU Horned Frogs 65-7, the largest margin of victory in a championship game, to cap their undefeated 15-0 season. Monday’s championship game brought more than 211K engagements to Georgia’s social accounts and 34K engagements to TCU’s social accounts.

Bowl Games Highlights 

Bowl games have individual branded logos for a reason. These logos show up on TV broadcasts, social media score graphics, t-shirts, jerseys, and more. Each time this logo appears, the brands sponsoring the bowl games receive exposure to college football markets.

Cheez-It Bowl

If there was an award for most creative bowl game activation, Cheez-It would be a frontrunner. The popular Kellogg’s snack sponsored the Cheez-It Bowl on December 29, 2022 between Florida State and Oklahoma and the Citrus Bowl between LSU and Purdue on January 2, 2023. The final score graphics below combined for 73k engagements for Cheez-It.

For both bowl games, the Cheez-It promoted a hotel room activation where four players would receive NIL deals and spend the night in their “Cheez-It Hotel”. The stunt received publicity including articles from Sports Business Journal, Sports Illustrated, and this post from College Football on Fox that earned more than 10k engagements.  

Goodyear Cotton Bowl

Tulane football received over 122K engagements on social media on the day of their victory over USC, doubling their highest day of engagement in the last year. Many of Tulane’s posts, like the one below, created valuable exposure for Goodyear due to the Cotton Bowl campaign logo.

VRBO Fiesta Bowl 

Although they didn’t bring home the final win, the TCU Horned Frogs had quite an upset over the Wolverines and earned themselves a place in the National Championship on New Year’s Eve. The team received over 560K engagements on social media against Michigan, a 179% increase from their highest day of engagement in 2022.

Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl

Georgia received over 663K engagements across social media on New Year’s Eve, their highest day of engagement in 2022. This Instagram post celebrating their victory received over 122K engagements.

Blinkfire is your destination for news, data, and stories on sports, sponsorship, technology, and marketing. Stay up-to-date on it all by visiting out blog. Interested in learning more about Blinkfire? Contact us today!