Synopsis:
After watching its ratings plummet, there will be a different setup for the New Year’s Six games.
With New Year’s Day being on a Sunday, the Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Sugar Bowl will be played on Monday, January 2.
Orange Bowl to Friday seems....dumb. And what are the two semi-final games next year? I'm assuming they'll be 2 of the 3 games played on January 2nd.
Edit: I now assume they're remaining on New Year's Eve. I was thinking those were the same two bowls on NYE as last year.
The NCAA decision-makers are so arrogant that they think they can "change the paradigm of New Year's Eve." That's really working great so far...
And they still have not gotten it right.
GIVE UP THE F'ING NEW YEARS EVE THING.
That slot is taken.
That's what I was thinking - the bowl games don't want to compete with the NFL.
It was normal before the NFL even existed: there has never been a Rose Bowl on a Sunday.
Those January 1 games are always on January 2 when January 1 is on a Sunday. That's not the change that was made. The only change is moving the Orange Bowl to Friday so the semifinals can be a little earlier on New Year's Eve (3 & 7).
The semis on New Year's Eve is still awful. I don't know why they can't grasp that.
The early game is pretty awesome. I could get behind it with 12pm and 3:30pm starts but by the time 7-8pm rolls around they automatically lose a large percentage of their audience.
Yeah, this only solves part of the problem, and only because NYE happens to fall on a Saturday. The CFP won't have to deal with starting a game during the work day, but the second game is still going to conflict with NYE plans for many adults in the eastern half of the country.
Exactly. If you are going to play on New Years Eve (still not a good idea) you need to be done by 7:00. A 3:00 start should be the latest.
Here's how I know Harbaugh is earning his money: I'm actually worried about this now. It's a real issue for us, quite possibly this year.
My family always has long-standing New Years Eve plans starting at dinner time, and they are not going to change them so I can sit in front of a TV watching a football game. Many people are in the same kind of position.
Well then, you've got exactly 9 months and 23 days to get a new family...
Cant put a huge game like that on at 9am
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doesn't even help this year. This doesn't change anything. The only thing this ensure is that people will have forgotten about college football completely by the time the "New Years Day" games are played. ESPN has a serious problem on their hands with this. Either the Rose Bowl needs to agree to move or it needs to host a CFP game every year. This will not do.
Would much rather have Glendale.
If we're in Atlanta it's highly likely we will be playing a team from the South who will dominate the stands.
I think we'd be more likely to have a bigger fan presence in Arizona. I am admittedly biased as I am moving to California and would love to be able to drive to a game next year, though.
“This is a one-time deal,” Hancock told USA Today. “We haven’t talked about the remaining nine years (of the contract). We had the opportunity because it was a Saturday to do this. … We always want to make the games available to more fans. We also will honor the traditions of college football.”
I suppose, as long as they realize that a fair number of people have to work during the traditions of college football on occasion, at least the way this has been structured. I know that it was the subject of a thread or two here back at the end of last year, but it seems like their viewership for these games in particular will be highly variable depending on the days of the week on which the holidays fall. I could be wrong there.
is a disaster. Think about it. Soooooo, the CFP playoff is on a Saturday, OK, cool, people won't miss the beginning of the games because of work this year. That is one very small upside. However, it is still on New Years Eve, so again nobody is going to watch. Then, after the CFP, you have a full day of critical NFL games in between the CFP and the New Years Day games(which have no bearing on the National Championship), which by the way, nobody will be able to watch even if they were inclined because they have to work. This is there solution? WTF is this?
Won't most people who would get January 1 as a holiday get January 2 next year instead? That's the way it has always worked for me.
Hancock maintained that the semifinal games are locked into the New Year’s Eve slot, which is when they’re slotted for seven of the next 10 years. He did say that the 2016 New Year’s Six schedule is a temporary one.
Is there really no way they can redo that contract? Doesn't ABC/ESPN want higher ratings?
The January 2 games (Cotton-Rose-Sugar) were always going to be on January 2. That's not a change, despite what this article (and the OP) imply. The Cotton, Rose and Sugar Bowls have always been on Monday, January 2, rather than Sunday, January 1.
The other issue, with the NYE games, is going to be with us 7 more times: 2016, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2024 and 2025. They are never going to get all of the stakeholders to agree to any other fix.
Sure, ESPN wants higher ratings, but the Rose and Sugar bowls don't care about the ratings that the Peach & Fiesta Bowls get. The Rose will never be able to move from its traditional date, because the Bowl is integrated with the Rose Parade and that can't be on NYE. The Sugar Bowl just wants its own status to be the same as the Rose, so it's tied to NYD as well.
So what's the fix that the Rose & Sugar bowls are willing to sign on to?
The NYE issue is what I'm talking about. I don't see why the playoff can't just alternate between Jan. 1 (when it includes the Rose Bowl) and Jan. 2 (when it doesn't).
But more people have the day off on December 31 than have the day off on January 2. Let's say the semis are scheduled for Monday, December 31. What would those ratings look like? What would the ratings look like on Wednesday, January 2?
I think the ratings would be even worse on January 2.
Maybe during the day, but I'd bet that evening slot would outdraw NYE. Dec. 31 happens to be one particular evening when it's hard for a lot of people to sit in front of a TV for 3-4 hours. Almost any other evening in late December/early January would be better.
I agree as far as television goes. However, I think the bigger problem would be selling tickets to a midweek playoff game after the holidays are over for most people. A CFB semi-final in front of a half-empty stadium doesn't make for good visuals.
I can't imagine that'd be a problem. A national semifinal will sell tickets.
So, instead of having them on a day where a good portion of the country will have off (Jan1 & Sunday) move it to a day that most people will be back at work - Monday. Great idea....what asshats.
The Rose has never been played on a Sunday. That's not a new development.
That's beyond stupid. Apparently they're OK with upholding dumb traditions and just squashing important ones.
Yeah, I don't understand the Rose Bowl's position:
"Our time at 4:30 on NYD is sacrosanct, we can't possibly move it" vs. "We do not play the game on a Sunday" seems incongruous.
It's probably an artifact of old blue laws in Pasadena, but I doubt they're in effect for anything now (except for apparently the Parade of Roses/Rose Bowl.)
I would guess the 4:30 time slot has something to do with scheduling the parade and game in a smallish city on the same day. Probably nothing that couldn't be overcome, but I'd guess that's where the the tradition started.
Well, now part of the issue is the NFL. No bowls are played on Jan. 1 when it's a Sunday.
Sure, but that weakens their argument about why they won't hold the game on a day other than NYD.
Essentially, the Rose Bowl's instransigence is the major problem keeping the semi-finals off New Year's Day, and they're only able to be intransigent because the Big 10 and Pac 12 back them up.
They say that the Rose Parade was never on Sundays in the early days because the horses could be spooked by the church bells.
The Tournament of Roses is first and foremost a parade; the football came later. And the Tournament of Roses Association made this rule "to avoid frightening horses tethered outside local churches and thus interfering with worship services."
Eh, the day thing makes sense. BAck when the Rose Bowl started, not playing on Sunday was the absolute norm. Now, when nobody would think twice about a game being on Sunday, they would have to compete with the NFL. Business dictates that playing on a Sunday, January 1st won't happen. I get the 2nd over the 31st. Most people get the 2nd off as it is the federal holiday on years when the 1st falls on the Sunday.
That being said, the Rose Bowl's insistence that the 4:30 time slot on the 1st/2nd is sacrosanct is b.s. They lost the right to that argument when they signed onto the original BCS which had the national title game on the 3rd or 4th, no matter if it was being hosted as the Rose or Sugar Bowl. They shouldn't have been unable to unring that bell for purposes of the college football playoff. Hopefully this comes back to bite them by eventually seeing the CFP just cut out the bowls entirely and have semifinal games (and quarterfinal games?) hosted on campus at the higher seed.
I don't know why it's so hard for them to fathom why it is a horrible idea to dump two of the biggest college football games of the year into the television wasteland that is New Year's Eve. Any alternative they can find will be better than NYE.
Moving bowl games to Jan 2 is an atter brain freeze of a decision.
I can only assume they were shovelling massive quantities of frozen CO2 into their gobbling mouths.
I dunno about most of this country, but I'll be at work.
Edit: Wild hyperbole aside, I guess maybe if they move it to 8pm it COULD work. But, they'll have to advertise the shaving cream out of it.
The New Year's Day bowl games have always been played on Jan. 2 when NYD is a Sunday. January 2 is a holiday in this case. But they should play the playoff games on Jan. 2 and play the relatively meaningless other games on NYE.
They're probably not idiots. They almost certainly know that the best situation is to play the playoff games on NYD. They're stuck since the Rose Bowl (and Sugar, I guess) refused to move off its customary time (unless it's a Sunday, of course).
They had essentially four options.
1. Award the semis to the Rose and Sugar every year, awarding the championship game on rotation to the remaining 4 bowls.
2. Saying "screw you guys" and counterprograming the Rose and Sugar with the semis on NYD.
3. Choosing the current situation.
4. Wrapping the semis around the Rose Bowl in years it didn't have the rights to them, ie one semi at 1 EST, Rose at 4:45, second semi at 8:30. (This is the best option, if the Sugar wasn't wedded to its time, which it shouldn't be b/c it's in a dome and isn't tied to the Parade of Roses, which I don't care about but a lot of people seem to).
#3 sucks for everyone who's not on a bowl committee, but unfortunately, the people that voted were people on bowl committees and their collaborators in the conferences. They weren't being idiots, though, they chose the option that didn't totally screw anyone in the room, even though it did screw over the viewers (and college football, more broadly)
I haven't heard anybody push that alternative but it is definitely the best option if keeping the Rose Bowl on NYD is a must.