The 2024 regular season is in the books as teams now are full on their off-season preparation or preparing for a bowl game.

For Liberty, the Flames finished 8-3 on the season and are now preparing to play in the program’s sixth straight bowl game when they take on Buffalo in the Bahamas Bowl on Saturday, Jan. 4 on ESPN2.

2024 also marked the second season for the Flames in Conference USA and the second season for CUSA’s five-year media deal with ESPN and CBS. As part of this deal, the networks agree to air numerous CUSA games on their channels throughout the season, including the notorious CUSA midweek slate in October. Playing in the midweek, gives CUSA and its members much more attention than if those games were played on Saturday.

Here is a look at the highest watched CUSA games from this past season (note: this is just CUSA vs CUSA games and does not include games on CBS Sports Network as that channel is not rated):

  1. 434k – Middle Tennessee vs Jacksonville State, Wednesday, October 23, ESPN2
  2. 403k – Western Kentucky vs Sam Houston, Wednesday, October 16, ESPN2
  3. 310k – New Mexico State vs Jacksonville State, Wednesday, October 9, ESPN2
  4. 182k – Kennesaw State vs Western Kentucky, Wednesday, October 30, ESPN2
  5. 160k – Liberty vs New Mexico State, Saturday, September 7, ESPN2
  6. 132k – Sam Houston vs FIU, Tuesday, October 22, ESPNU
  7. 81k – UTEP vs Western Kentucky, Thursday, October 10, ESPNU
  8. 64k – Louisiana Tech vs New Mexico State, Tuesday, October 15, ESPNU
  9. 33k – Louisiana Tech vs Sam Houston, Tuesday, October 29, ESPNU
  10. 20k – Jacksonville State vs Western Kentucky, Saturday, November 30, ESPNU

Eight of the top nine most watched CUSA games this season happened on a midweek. The one that didn’t was between Liberty and New Mexico State in a game that kicked off around 10:30 Eastern.

It’s clear to see why CUSA prefers the midweek schedule. Of course, it has to be balanced with preserving the tradition of a college football Saturday as the midweek contests do take away from attendance and make it harder for people to get there in person. But, for the Group of Five, they have to do whatever they can in order to grab some attention and provide the best possible TV deal for its members.

Attendance does take a hit in the midweek contests. In 2024, Conference USA teams averaged 15,933 fans for their Saturday contests while that averaged dipped to 12,676 for the midweek matchups.

This is not isolated to just Conference USA. In total, during the 2024 season, there were 26 Group of Five vs Group of Five games that had 300k or more viewers. 24 of those were on a weeknight. The two that came on Saturday were both Army games on a Saturday afternoon on ESPN2.