You might remember way back in January we celebrated how perfect the first year of the College Football Playoff was. But you might also remember that we told you how the New Year’s Six schedule would be a disaster the next two seasons because of an at the time little-known quirk in the semifinal rotation. Because of the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl being locked into New Year’s Day timeslots, every two out of three years the semifinals would move to New Year’s Eve.
This, for a number of reasons, is a horrible idea.
It’s such a horrible idea that ESPN reportedly tried to get the powers that be in college football to move them off New Year’s Eve.
I know this will shock you, but the powers that be in college football didn’t listen. The official schedule was released this week and the semifinals this year will take place at 4/8 PM ET on New Year’s Eve at the Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl.
| Date | Time (ET) | Bowl |
| Thurs., Dec. 31 | Noon | Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl |
| 4 p.m. | College Football Playoff Semifinal | |
| 8 p.m. | College Football Playoff Semifinal | |
| Fri., Jan. 1 | 1 p.m. | Fiesta Bowl |
| 5 p.m. | Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual | |
| 8:30 p.m. | Allstate Sugar Bowl |
After enormously high ratings for the first ever semifinals on New Year’s Day, (they were only the two highest rated cable television programs of all-time) the playoff will take a massive hit this year. The New Year’s Eve timeslot had a significant impact on the NY6 bowls in 2014:
Peach Bowl: Down 42% from the year prior, least watched since 2006
Fiesta Bowl: Down 34% from the year prior, lowest rated since 1985
Orange Bowl: Down 22% from the year prior, second-lowest rated since 1993
These are the kinds of headlines college football will receive, simply through the scheduling of the semifinals on New Year’s Eve. Semifinal ratings will drop double digits from their place on New Year’s Day last year. How could they not? For the first semifinal, most of the country is still going to be at work when it starts. (1 PM on the west coast on a Thursday!) For the second semifinal, most of the country is going to be out celebrating New Year’s Eve. The wisdom of playing the Fiesta Bowl before noon local time on New Year’s Day has to be questioned too. Without the semifinal stakes, ratings for the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl will be down too. Everything will be down. And then we’ll be hear asking the question next January, “What’s wrong with the College Football Playoff and why are fans losing interest???” All we’ll have to do is link back to this post to explain why.
You could hardly construct a worse schedule for the New Year’s Six from a television and viewership perspective.
Leave it to this sport to put the interests of the bowl games, their executives, and their money, over the interest of fans. It could be worse college football fans, at least none of these college football executives are citing The Onion to support this operation. At least, not yet…
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