There is no better bellwether than this year’s BCS National Championship between Oklahoma and Florida. Last night’s FedEx BCS National Championship received a 15.8 rating, up 16% from last year’s game.

In the metered markets, Oklahoma City had the highest local rating, with 51.7% of the Sooners’ home DMA tuning into the game. Five local Florida markets also made the top ten, led by Jacksonville with a 40.2 local rating.

Top 10 Local Markets HH Rating 1/8/09
BCS National Championship

Market	HH Rating
Oklahoma City	51.7
Tulsa	46.9
Birmingham	41.6
Jacksonville	40.2
Tampa-St. Pete (Sarasota)	32.3
Orlando-Daytona Bch-Melbrn	30.6
Austin	29.9
West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce	29.5
Ft. Myers-Naples	28.2
Source: 2009 The Nielsen Company

Viewership for the other four BCS bowls was also up compared to last year. The Fiesta Bowl between Ohio State and Texas was up 40%, the Sugar Bowl was up 14%, and viewership for the Rose Bowl increased 8%.

Outside the BCS, the positive trend continued with 17 of 27 bowls outperforming last year’s ratings.  Most notable were four bowl games airing on ESPN that boasted triple-digit increases in viewership:

• The Humanitarian Bowl between Maryland and Nevada was seen by 3 million viewers, a whopping 218% increase over last year’s game.
• The Hawaii Bowl was proof that Notre Dame still can still deliver a large audience (and a victory),  in front of 4.4 million viewers up 119% over last year’s game.
• The Poinsettia Bowl on Dec.23  and the GMAC Bowl on Jan. 6 showed that there is demand for Bowls well before and after New Year’s, sporting 115% and 113% increases in viewers, respectively.

Below is a full recap of national viewers for this year’s bowl games.