College Football Playoff Still Committed To Arrogant New Year's Eve Ploy

The College Football Playoff suffered a near 40 percent decline in TV viewership from Year 1 to Year 2, shifting from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve. Some would term that “catastrophic.” Bill Hancock described it as “modest,” and confirmed the playoff semifinals would continue on New Year’s Eve.

"“We had some bum luck with the lack of competitive games,” Hancock said. “Things would have been different with competitive games. How much different, nobody knows. “We’re very confident that every year will be different and over time these games will be ingrained into a part of the New Year’s Eve tradition.”"

Competitive games would have helped the playoff viewership. Enough to offset a 40 percent decline? Almost certainly not. Most predicted a substantial drop in viewership. It was worse than anyone exepected. While many variables were at play, the glaring, obvious one was playing the games on a night with fewer people than normal watching TV.

To be fair, playing the games on New Year’s Eve is the most obvious option next year. New Year’s Eve will be a Saturday. The NFL will claim Sunday, January 1st.

That said, ceding the prime New Year’s Day window to keep bowl executives happy this year, when said bowl executives have zero leverage was a mistake. Ceding prime Saturday afternoon territory on Jan. 2 to the Liberty and Cactus bowls was absolutely asinine.

Maybe the focus should be optimizing the playoff’s place in the college football tradition?