I seriously doubt that ESPN or any media company loses money by running comp advertising to meet their ratings guarantee. Usually they preempt one of their own promo ads or move some other advertiser that bought preemptable time. January is a particularly bad time for most media outlets because most advertisers spend huge amounts to attract Christmas customers, then pull back in January when business usually isn't so good anyway. Media outlets usually have a lot of unsold inventory after Christmas so making up for ratings shortfalls usually isn't a problem.

It's certainly true that they have unsold inventory in January, but mostly on programs with lower ratings than the bowls were expected to have. The bowls with ratings off 5-15% should not be a problem, but ESPN can not be happy with bowls that were off 40-50%.

ESPN sells the majority of spots in their bowls as part of a package. With the exception of the Boise ads, all the other ads in the broadcast were part of a larger buy. In fact, most were probably "bonus" spots that were simply put in the rotation for advertisers that run spots on other programming - e.g., Sports Center and ESPN's daytime schedule. There would be no refunds or "make goods" for these ads...even if the broadcast under performed/delivered. To the point above, as long as the audience was within a few percentage points of expectations, everyone's happy.

Cable sports viewing is on the decline, period. Less and less cable subscribers and ESPN and live sports in general is about the #1 reason to have a cable and/or satellite subscription in 2020. That said, the advertisers know this. There are other intangibles, as someone mentioned, to the actual Neilson ratings (which, who really knows how accurate those are??) when you factor in all of the B-Dubs of the worlds and people "borrowing" someone's streaming service password - in both cases you're getting the commercials. No cause for alarm. The bowl package is still one the uniquely unique things that only a cable/satellite channel can provide.