With the CFP semifinals moving back to New Year’s Day, ESPN expectedly had its best New Year’s Six bowl viewership since the first season of the playoffs back in ’14-15. The Peach, Fiesta, Orange, Cotton, Rose and Sugar Bowls averaged 14.4 million viewers for ’17-18, up from 13.4 million viewers last season and 11.8 million viewers two seasons ago, when the semifinal aired on New Year’s Eve. For the first iteration of the CFP, the New Year’s Six games averaged 14.7 million viewers with a schedule comparable to this season. The three games on Jan. 1 (Peach, Rose, Sugar) also led to ESPN’s second-best total-day viewership on record, behind only Jan. 1, 2015 (Cotton, Rose, Sugar). For ESPN/ESPN2/ABC, the complete bowl season was also a success in ’17-18. Viewership this season for the 35 bowls on those networks was up 12% from ’16-17. Only five games -- the Cure, Foster Farms, Holiday, Sun and Arizona Bowls -- aired outside the ESPN family of networks. Among the superlatives for ESPN this season was record viewership for the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl, featuring Army-San Diego State (3.5 million viewers). ESPN also had its best figure since ’13 for the New Era Pinstripe Bowl (Iowa-Boston College) and Hawaii Bowl (Fresno State-Houston) (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
KEEP IT GROWING: Former CBS Sports President Neal Pilson said that the CFP will "eventually expand to eight teams within the length of the current contract and be worth" at least $10B. CBSSPORTS.com's Dennis Dodd noted Pilson was "reacting, in part, to the regionalized nature" of Monday's game. Pilson: "From a television point of view, any sports executive would tell you he would prefer a team from the different part of the country. The best would be a Big Ten team in terms of the size of market." One TV consultant said there will be "some people who probably won't watch" the game because it is all-SEC and it "has the potential" to be the lowest-rated CFP Championship. Dodd noted lower ratings "could be one of the stressors that leads the CFP to expand." Pilson "firmly believes the bracket will double to eight when the current ESPN-CFP contract expires" after the '26 playoff. He also said that he expects the current 12-year, $7.2B contract between ESPN and the CFP to be "reopened before that date" (CBSSPORTS.com, 1/4). FS1’s Jason McIntyre said of whether an all-SEC title game is bad for college football, “It's not bad. It's horrible. ... The SEC plays kind of an unwatchable brand of football. ... We’ve got two teams similar to each other going at it. I don't think the majority of the country is going to tune in for this.” FS1’s Danny Kanell: “It’s going to be a rough watch. The ratings are going to bare it out. I don't think they’re going to do a good number, but the one blessing in disguise is maybe this sparks change. The last time we saw two SEC teams, when Alabama and LSU faced off against each other, it was the impetus for the playoff. Let’s expand, let’s get eight and let’s give UCF a chance” (“Speak for Yourself,” FS1, 1/3).
LACKING MASS APPEAL? In Boston Chad Finn wrote because the game features two SEC teams, there is "some thought that the appeal will be limited on a national scale, even with a love-'em-or-hate-'em traditional powerhouse such as Alabama involved." When asked if this is a genuine concern for ESPN, announcer Chris Fowler said, "Potentially. ... We try to stay away from worrying about the business side of the matchup and the implications and just call the game. Certainly there are people at the network that are very concerned about the ratings and things like that. But honestly, there is not much you can do about that" (BOSTONGLOBE.com, 1/4).
