TV ratings for New Year’s 6 Bowls down 13 percent overall

Under the second year of ESPN’s 12-year college football playoff deal – for which it pays about $600 million a year for rights – key college football semifinal games were moved to New Year’s Eve from the more traditional New Year’s Day. When the College Football Playoff semifinals are played in the other four games in the New Year’s Six rotation, they will be played on New Year’s Eve.

The FBS conference commissioners who put together the College Football Playoff in 2012 said they wanted to create a new tradition by playing the semifinals on New Year’s Eve twice every three years over the course of a 12-year contract with ESPN.

ESPN tried to make the best of the situation, pointing out that streaming views for the Orange and Cotton were up over last year’s games.

“We are committed to this”, Hancock said. This time, those bowls insisted on keeping their New Year’s Day slots, which pushed the semifinals to New Year’s Eve – with disastrous consequences. These numbers were drastically higher on New Year’s Day a year ago in the Rose (15.5 rating) and Sugar (15.3) bowls.

“As we always do, we’ll review the final numbers but I do not anticipate changes in the schedule going forward”, College Football Playoff Executive Director Bill Hancock said.

Total viewership for the semifinals played Thursday between Michigan State and Alabama in the Cotton Bowl and Clemson and Oklahoma in Orange Bowl plunged 34.4 percent, from 28,271,000 in 2015 to 18,552,000.

“It’s just not appropriate to talk until all the results are in”, Hancock said.

The Alabama Crimson Tide’s 38-0 trouncing of the Michigan State Spartans in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic drew a 9.9 rating, while the Clemson Tigers’ 37-17 win over of the Oklahoma Sooners in the Capital One Orange Bowl generated a 9.7 rating. “I guess it’s like asking a coach to talk about a whole game at halftime”.

Now ESPN, which has pledged a $7.3 billion investment over 12 years to carry the CFP games, has more than just empirical evidence. The face-off between Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston in the Rose Bowl drew 28 million viewers.

As long as five or more quality teams are still standing each December when members of the College Football Playoff selection committee set their four-team bracket, controversy will cling to the current process of crowning a national champion.

· On average, this season’s College Football Playoff Semifinals, added 313,000 average minute impressions to the TV audience, had 1,117,000 unique viewers and 67,142,000 minutes watched, up 67%, 29% and 58%, respectively, from last year’s two-game semifinal average. ESPN is paying mega bucks to broadcast the College Football Playoff, and the CFB Playoff thumbed their noses at ESPN and refused to move the biggest games of the year to a more logical time, whether on January 1 or on January 2. The semifinals are back in the Rose and Sugar bowls, and on New Year’s Day, after the 2017 season. When CFP officials declined to do so, ESPN mounted a promotional campaign trying to entice viewers to watch on New Year’s Eve.

As for the late-night New Year’s Eve celebrations across the networks, ABC led as usual with a 10.0 household rating/24 share from 11:30 p.m.-1:15 a.m. ET – down 7% from last year (10.7/25).