SAN ANTONIO – The Alamo Bowl, for three-plus decades, has been a staple of ESPN’s bowl lineup but will now for the first time move to broadcast television for the 2024 season.
The game will air on ABC stations, including KSAT.
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Kickoff for the game is set for 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 28. Tickets for the game are on sale now.
“The first 31 years have been on ESPN. This is something new and different,” Valero Alamo Bowl President and CEO Derrick Fox told the San Antonio Business Journal. “We’re excited about the opportunity.”
ABC confirmed the change in channel, which should now provide more visibility and exposure for the city of San Antonio and for a game that has regularly gotten strong ratings. It often has had compelling and close matchups.
“We’ve been very fortunate to put together a lot of good games that have drawn well for them,” Fox said to SABJ. “We’ve got a great slot and a great opportunity now.”
SABJ said the terms of the Alamo Bowl’s deal with Disney, however, have not changed.
Last year’s version of the game drew nearly 4 million viewers and generated an economic impact of $55.9 million, according to a report from Economic Analytics Consulting LLC, as part of SABJ’s findings. More than 43,000 visitors came because of the game to the Alamo City.
“The tremendous impact the Valero Alamo Bowl has on San Antonio each year is felt in such a big way across our community,” Clyde Rucker, chair of the 2024 Valero Alamo Bowl said.
The SABJ article states that since its inception in 1993, the Alamo Bowl games have created a total impact of more than $1.1 billion for the San Antonio economy and brought nearly 2 million attendees to the area over that period.
The 2023 game had No. 14 Arizona force six turnovers in a 38-24 comeback victory over No. 12 Oklahoma, scoring 25 straight points to close the game.
It was recently reported that because of conference realignment, the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma will now not be eligible to be chosen for the 2024 or 2025 editions of the game, since they have since moved on to the Southeastern Conference. The Alamo Bowl would have preferred to have them remain eligible, but the schools, the current SEC Bowls and the SEC provided substantial “pushback” on the idea.
Either the Sooners or Longhorns have been the Big 12 representative for each of the past five seasons and the Alamo Bowl has had a matchup of a Big 12 school and Pac-12 school in every season dating to 2010.