The CFP is "under pressure on two fronts to adjust future schedules for its semifinals and championship games," but the CFP is "standing firm on its original dates," according to sources cited by Ourand & Smith in this week's SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. Top ESPN execs are "lobbying CFP officials to move next season’s semifinals off of New Year’s Eve where it would compete with highly rated star-filled countdown shows on several networks." Next season’s semifinals at the Capital One Orange Bowl and the Goodyear Cotton Bowl are scheduled for Dec. 31, but ESPN is "pushing the CFP to move those games to Jan. 2, 2016, a Saturday with relatively little competition on TV." The NFL's regular season concludes that Sunday, Jan. 3, and the league "hasn't had a Saturday game during the final week of its regular season" since '07. Sources said that senior network execs "as high up as ESPN President John Skipper are pushing for the change as a way to get better television ratings, but the CFP is unwilling to make such a move because it is committed to the original plan to hold tripleheader bowl games, including the semifinals, on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day." CFP Exec Dir Bill Hancock said, "We've started a new tradition and we don't want to back away from it now." Meanwhile, the NFL is "considering expanding its playoffs and moving one of the new games to Monday night when it would compete directly with the CFP championship." Sources said that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell "initiated a series of high-level meetings with some of the CFP's most influential commissioners, including the SEC's Mike Slive and the Big Ten's Jim Delany." Goodell "approached the commissioners to discuss the potential impact an NFL playoff expansion would have on the CFP championship game" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 1/26 issue).
DOUBLING DOWN: Hancock said, "It would not be fair to force fans to choose between the two games. We picked Monday night when the playoff was first created back in June of 2012, because the NFL wasn’t playing then and because it would culminate a great weekend for college football" (DALLASNEWS.com, 1/26). Meanwhile, in Miami, Barry Jackson cites a source as saying that the Orange Bowl "doesn't feel strongly about the matter and ultimately must defer to whatever the CFP decides" (MIAMI HERALD, 1/27).
