Seems viewership fell to 22 Million in 2014 to 2015. Possibly fans are tired of watching Bama both years in the playoffs. Maybe Danny Kanell could offer some intelligent insight as I am not qualified to do so.
College football playoff to start earlier next season
- Thread starter ecraj
- Start date
Moving them up an hour won't solve the problem. They need to have play-off games on separate days.
If your team isn't in the play-offs and is playing in either a New Years Day or New Years Eve game, you are likely going to watch that instead of a play-off game. That is taking eyeballs (and money) away from the play-off games.
Put them on a different day and you pick up a lot of the viewers that were watching their team.
If your team isn't in the play-offs and is playing in either a New Years Day or New Years Eve game, you are likely going to watch that instead of a play-off game. That is taking eyeballs (and money) away from the play-off games.
Put them on a different day and you pick up a lot of the viewers that were watching their team.
Did you not read your link? They are moving the Orange Bowl to the 30th. The playoff games will be the only games played on the 31st.
The 2014 playoff games were played on January 1, which was a Thursday. It was a day people were off work and - more to the point - WATCHING COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAMES because that tradition goes back......well, it predates my birth for sure. Folks had sat around all day eating nachos and recovering from the hangover.......oh, and it MOST PROBABLY was the first day off of a four-day weekend, too.
And to top all that - you had national name brands in the games. While Oregon has not been in the elite discussion for very long, the fact is that a lot of folks know who the Ducks are and have seen their high-powered offenses of recent years. Florida State has a national following aided by the fact no doubt a lot of folks wanted to see Rapeist Winston get beat.
And the prime time showdown was two blue bloods of college football, Alabama and Ohio State. Oh, did I mention that the game came down pretty much to the final play?
Fast forward one year.
December 31 occurred on a Thursday. This set-up means that A LOT of people (including myself) WORKED on December 31 with a forthcoming three-day weekend. Now let's throw in some other factors:
1) The first game kicked off at 3:10 Eastern Time. That's 210 here in Dallas, 110 in Denver, and lunch time in LA. ON A WORK DAY!!!! I was on the train riding home (I caught the 225 and left early because I wanted to see the game plus I was still pondering running over to Jerry World to watch us play). When you consider it was a Thursday when A LOT of people across the country would have been AT WORK for MOST of the game........why is anyone surprised?
I didn't even watch the Clemson game even though I wanted to. I got to my car and there was a mandatory detour because they're rebuilding roads around here. That cost me another half hour plus the interstates were clogged with: a) fans descending on Arlington; and b) people bolting town to go see family for the weekend. I got home exhausted at halftime.
I watched maybe five plays of the Clemson game because by the time I was awake and oriented the outcome was assured.
2) Michigan State is NOT Ohio State
Nothing personal but Michigan State isn't even the biggest deal within the borders of Michigan; they're NOT a national brand in football. I mean no disrespect but Sparty at a NATIONAL LEVEL is not even as in the public's consciousness as Auburn for Pete's sake. In fact, I surmise that the ratings were even higher than perhaps they would have been because they could play up the old "Big Ten-SEC" non-rivalry angle for all it was worth.
Alabama-OU would have drawn monster numbers by comparison.
Alabama-Clemson would have been hyped with the inevitable "Alabama can't stop a dual threat QB" nonsense.
If it had been MICHIGAN, the ratings would have been much higher.
If it had been IOWA, the ratings would have been even lower than they were.
If it had been OHIO STATE in a REMATCH - they'd be puking in the toilet over how many fans they left out and musing about how "if the game had been on Saturday, it would have been the highest rated CFB game EVER on ESPN."
3) Because the game was on New Year's Eve, it necessarily reduced casual folks who would have tuned the game in had it been on January 1.
I know this sounds weird to us die hards but......just like there are SOME FANS who only tune in the Super Bowl to see the commercials, there are some fans out there who don't really pay a lot of attention to CFB except for one day a year, January 1. These are folks who have childhood memories going back to happy time blah blah reminisce, auld lange syne, wonder what my ex is up to.
Plus, since 12/31 was on a Thursday with folks being off - Thursday became a DE FACTO Friday, meaning it was time to go out and get blitzed (only not on the ball field).
4) Michigan State was dead when Cook threw that interception just before half-time.
If Michigan State had scored even just a field goal but especially if they'd scored a TD........I'm betting you millions of fans tuned the game out when Cyrus Jones intercepted that pass at the one. Not only did we snuff out their best scoring chance after a desperate drive but we were getting the ball to start the second half.
Just like you can only make so many "Friday the 13th" movies, die hard fans of the game (but not the teams) knew what was about to happen. Alabama was a phenomenal second half team this past year usually on both sides of the ball (remember - despite losing to Ole Miss, we still pumped in 27 second half points and OUTSCORED the Rebels, 27-26, in that debacle).
Combine all this and there should be no surprise at why.
I'm thinking it might be better than last year depending on matchups, but the biggest problem with the whole thing is that all of the stadiums with the exception of the rose bowl are NFL stadiums. so the Cowboys, Falcons, cards, Saints, and the fish have the potential playoff weekends reserved. Personally I wish 1 and 2 had home field advantage at their place for the semis on the first Friday of January , and the championship is on the weekend of the pro bowl at a neutral site. Because ratings will be down even if it's bama vs osu and fsu vs Texas on a New Year's Eve.
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Unless your family tradition is something outdoors in the wilderness it seems like it wouldn't be to burdensome to incorporate being in the vicinity of a television for an hour or two. Just curious what your family tradition is because in all of these threads about games around the new years you always bring up your family tradition but I don't recall you ever saying what it is that you do during that time. It's cool if you don't want to say but just thought I would ask since you always bring it up..
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See, that's the issue - down here, family tradition IS football. :wink: Roll Tide.
(I hear ya though. Any family time is a good tradition to have.)
There is a large group of us that book a trip every year. Last year it was Epcot for NYE. The year before it was NYC. We have been doing this a long time. We all get together for Christmas, then we travel together somewhere for NYE. There are generally no TVs around where we spend NYE. I admit that I followed the Alabama/MSU game some on my Android, but not much. I didn't follow the Clemson/OU game at all.
We only get together like this once/year. It is amazing, and the thing that we look forward to most every year. We are a pretty close family, but spread out all over.
We are clearly not the typical American family. I get that. But we all love college football, and we all prefer this tradition to football. I don't remember anyone worried about missing the game on NYE, and my wife's entire family are either Alabama fans or grads. They bleed Crimson.
My mind must have skipped over it in my race to respond to the post.
Will be interesting to see if it makes a difference.
Ditto. My wife, a nonfan, is great about me watching the big UA games on the schedule. She put her foot down on New Year's Eve, then eased off the pedal a bit. We went out, but came back early from Charlotte because she doesn't like to be on the road next to drinkers. I had to tape the first half, then pause the game at midnight for a few minutes.
In other words, we found a compromise. But I suspect the MIA rate among more casual fans had to be significant.
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I don't care what day the last day of the year is on, in many many businesses that day is VERY important and is all hands on deck.
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