The first College Football Playoff proved to be a huge success, both on the field and in television ratings. Now, the powers within that playoff may hurt their own product by refusing to stray from their original formula.
Here’s the issue: for the 2015 season, the national semifinals are scheduled to be played on New Year’s Eve rather than New Year’s Day, because the bowls hosting this season’s semifinals are the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl, which do not have defined, traditional time slots on January 1. Instead, these bowls have been floated around and are scheduled to be played on a Thursday for the 2015 season.
There are a couple of problems with this scenario. First, the television ratings for these games will be lower because some people actually do work on New Year’s Eve. Many other people have other plans for gatherings and parties on the year’s final day.
With the first semifinal scheduled to kick off around 5:00 Eastern Time, the television audience would be diminished. Likewise, with the second game, it is sure to run past midnight, where many people may turn the channel to watch Ryan Seacrest or some other show from Times Square to see the ball drop at midnight.
The second problem is that the semifinals would be somewhat overshadowed by the Sugar Bowl and the Rose Bowl, which would be played on New Year’s Day in their traditional time slots. While these games won’t have playoff implications, they do have tradition and pageantry that the Cotton and Orange Bowls lack.
As if Bill Hancock, Jeff Long and the playoff committee didn’t have enough to worry about, they are now getting pressure from ESPN and the NFL to make changes to their schedule. ESPN wants the playoff games on January 2, a Saturday, for better ratings. The NFL wants the Playoff gods to move their championship game away from a Monday night so that if Roger Goodell and the league decide to expand their playoffs, they could stake a claim to that spot for a potential wildcard game.
Hancock and Long are trying to be powerful with their bold new product, the playoff, but they are up against two major forces. ESPN owns the rights to the College Football Playoff as well as the NFL’s Monday Night Football series. If ESPN decides they want to move the playoff games, they will do so and there will be little that Hancock and Long can do. Especially if the powerful NFL decides they want the rights to the second Monday night in January.
The solution here is simple. Hancock and Long should release a statement saying that it’s best for their product to play the national semifinals on Saturday, January 2 so that those games can be the focus of the football world. Then, they should pick another night for their championship game, perhaps the second Tuesday of January. That would make all parties happy in addition to protecting the momentum of the College Football Playoff.
Tim Letcher is a contributing writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @TimLetcher , on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.
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