The "hubristic bunch" running the CFP should pay close attention to the fact that airing the games on New Year's Eve "was a flop," according to Richard Deitsch of SI.com. Deitsch: "Not just a regular flop. We’re talking New Coke, the Ford Edsel, Magic Johnson hosting late night." The "arrogance" of CFP Exec Dir Bill Hancock and the Power 5 conference commissioners "knows no bounds as they are preventing many Americans from watching one of the signature sporting events of the year." ESPN VP/College Sports Programming Ilan Ben-Hanan said of the Rose Bowl, "If they wanted to have a conversation about changing dates, that is something we would of course look at and talk about with them but ultimately, without a doubt, it is in their control. But we know what we acquired and it was a completely eyes-wide-open transaction." Deitsch noted ESPN is not "as worried as perhaps it should be" because the next time the CFP will occur "on a New Years Eve workday is Dec. 31, 2018, which is Year Five of ESPN's deal with CFP." That date is a Monday, which means this year's issues will "come back into the fold" (SI.com, 1/3). In Seattle, Geoff Baker writes college football "needs
to get its scheduling act together now that it has overhauled and
downgraded the bowl system." It is one thing for college football to
"push limits by making fans endure weeks of phony bowls to grab some
loose change," but it is quite another to "push luck by greedily
pretending traditional New Year’s Day bowls still mean enough to keep
coveted slots." The sport was "pushing way too far to try to commandeer
New Year’s Eve for a playoff cash grab." Baker: "Something has to give,
because no one’s buying it" (SEATTLE TIMES, 1/4).
In L.A., Tom Hoffarth wrote a New Year's Eve night "party-crashed by
important college football games didn’t stand a chance against common
sense" (L.A. DAILY NEWS, 1/3).
 |
Hancock said that the decline in ratings was
modest, adding it wasn't "much of a surprise." |
ONE-SIDED AFFAIR: The AP's Ralph Russo noted the New Year's Six bowls saw a 13% drop
in overnight ratings from last year due to "lopsided games" and having
the CFP semifinals on New Year's Eve for the first
time.Hancock said, "That decline, frankly, is not
much of a surprise and it's modest. It's too soon to know how much was
due to the lopsided games or how much what I think we all thought would
be an inevitable decline from the excitement of the first year or the
semifinals on New Year's Eve." Russo
noted the average margin of victory in the New Year's Six games was 24.2
points. ESPN Exec VP/Programming & Scheduling Burke Magnus said,
"The numbers this year were obviously impacted by the unbalanced scores
of these games" (AP, 1/2).
SI.com's Deitsch wrote the college football public "has spoken
loudly: New Year's Eve is not a popular choice" for the CFP semifinals. ESPN drew 18.6 million viewers for Alabama’s 38-0 win over Michigan State in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, while the Capital One Orange
Bowl matchup featuring Clemson’s 37–17 victory over Oklahoma drew
15.6 million viewers. Both playoff games last year drew "just over" 28
million viewers. Clemson-Oklahoma was down 45% in viewership from the early semifinal game last year, while Alabama-Michigan State was down 34.4%. ESPN said that
Oklahoma-Clemson drew 1.188 million unique viewers on WatchESPN, the second-most ever viewers for any event on the platform,
excluding the FIFA World Cup. Alabama-Michigan State had
1.047 million uniques, "ranking fourth on that same list" (SI.com, 1/1).
HOLIDAY BLUES: In N.Y., Richard Sandomir noted viewership for the
CFP semifinals was "down drastically when compared with last season, a
clear indication that ESPN paid a price for the games’ move to New
Year’s Eve." ESPN had "hoped to turn New Year’s Eve into a new sports
holiday." The network "aggressively marketed the advent of the
semifinals in a promotional campaign, but the effort apparently did not
succeed." The disappointing ratings for the Orange and Cotton Bowls
"suggested that the semifinals are better off on New Year’s Day, as they
were last year." Still, seven of the next 10 years’ semifinal games are
"scheduled for New Year’s Eve." The semifinals were "joined in seeing
significantly lower viewership by 'Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve
With Ryan Seacrest' on ABC, ESPN’s broadcast sibling at the Walt Disney
Company." That program’s primetime audience fell 23.4% to 9.8 million
viewers (N.Y. TIMES, 1/2).
The AP's Russo wrote all of ESPN's "prodding and promoting wasn't
enough to convince many fans to tune in" to the CFP semifinals. Total
viewership "crashed" 34.4%. Russo wrote the matchups of this year's
games "weren't as attractive" as the inaugural CFP and both "turned out
to be lopsided." But the "biggest difference was the day the games were
played." ESPN suggested "moving this season's games off Dec. 31 to Jan.
2, an open Saturday with no NFL conflicts." But CFP officials said that
they "wanted to change the paradigm of New Year's Eve and did not want
to push off getting fans acclimated to their new, if unpopular,
idea." Social networks during this year's CFP semifinals were "virtually
silent about the games compared to the year before." Nielsen data
showed that 10.1 million people last year "saw one or more of 2.6
million tweets about the first game." This year just 6.5 million people
"saw one or more of 487,000 tweets sent about the game." The second
game was worse, as only 5.8 million people "saw one or more of 464,000
tweets" (AP, 1/1). BROADCASTING
& CABLE's Jon Lafayette wrote some viewership decline "had been
expected," and the bulk of ad time on the games was "sold as parts of
packages that included the regular season and ESPN’s other bowl games,
which to some degree lessens the impact of these two high-profile
telecasts" (BROADCASTINGCABLE.com, 1/1).
STAYING THE COURSE: USA TODAY's George Schroeder noted CFP officials "remain committed to playing on New Year’s Eve -- and to the belief that it will eventually be a TV ratings success." Magnus in a statement said, "The College Football Playoff is a long-term, multiplatform play for us. With that said, there are many variables that impact ratings results including what happens on the field and the numbers this year were obviously impacted by the unbalanced scores of these games." Hancock said that "nothing has changed" in terms of plans to play CFP semifinals on New Year's Eve. Hancock: "We are committed to this. Two years does not make a trend. Let’s watch this. Let’s see what happens." He added, "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" (USATODAY.com, 1/2).
WORSE THAN EXPECTED: On Long Island, Neil Best wrote this year's CFP semifinals "confirmed widespread speculation that ratings would suffer." But even the "most pessimistic TV industry observers did not anticipate the magnitude of that suffering." Viewership was "down catastrophically from the inaugural semifinals last season." Many had warned that New Year’s Eve is "by nature a different holiday, one in which people tend to do things outside their homes." It is "not a federal holiday at all, meaning many people work that day" (NEWSDAY, 1/3). YAHOO SPORTS' Dan Wetzel wrote scheduling the semifinals on New Year's Eve was "an act of arrogance, of course, but also ignorance because the bubble in which these suits exist doesn't lend to interaction with folks who have jobs that don't take place in corner offices." When an event is moved "from a national holiday synonymous with the sport to the middle of a workday for many and this is what happens -- ratings drop" as much as 45%. Double that by "placing a second game on a night with endless entertainment options and longstanding traditions and you're completely spitting in the face of many of your fans." The New Year's Eve experience was a "two-fold disaster." Not only did millions fewer people watch the playoff games, but it "sucked all the life out of New Year's Day" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 1/2). In Portland, Ken Goe wrote the first year of "the great New Year's Eve experiment looks like a colossal failure." Apparently people "didn't rearrange their New Year's Eve plans just because ESPN told them to" (OREGONLIVE.com, 12/2).
SOUTHERN COMFORT: CBSSPORTS.com's Jon Solomon wrote college football's New Year's Six bowl
games for the second straight year were a "total bore." This time, they
were also a "historic bore" (CBSSPORTS.com, 1/2). In S.F., Samuel Chi writes the CFP did not "get it right," as the New Year's Six games were "all terrible mismatches." Meanwhile, the SEC is the "big winner of bowl season," as its 8-2 record is "by far the best mark posted by any conference" (S.F. CHRONICLE, 1/4). In Austin, Kevin Lyttle wrote the SEC "ruled the postseason," as no conference "had ever won eight bowl games before." The Pac-12 was the "next-best power conference at 6-4, although it faded down the stretch" (STATESMAN.com, 1/3).
HOST WITH THE MOST? In Orlando, Matt Murschel wrote South Florida officials "hope they made a positive impression" with CFP leaders as they "continue to push to be a future site of the national championship game." The Clemson-Oklahoma Orange Bowl game "drew an announced crowd of 67,615" (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 1/1).
