College Football Playoff TV Ratings Plummet for New Year's Eve Games

If it ain't broke, don't fix it -- that's typically pretty sound advice, especially when it comes to TV ratings.

However, college football decided to try something new and changed the College Football Playoff semifinal games from New Year's Day to New Year's Eve. Which proved to be a poor decision; ratings plummeted.

The move to create a "new tradition" resulted in TV ratings more than a third lower than last season, when the games were held New Year's Day. The Orange Bowl between Clemson and Oklahoma -- the first of the two semifinals -- kicked off around 4 p.m. EST on ESPN and drew a 9.1 rating, an almost a 29 percent drop from  last year. The Cotton Bowl between Michigan State and Alabama, a  night game,  drew a rating of 9.6 for ESPN, which was a significant drop from the 15.2 rating that Ohio State and Alabama enjoyed last year for the Sugar bowl on Jan. 1. Basically, it was worst case scenario for the college football executives.

While there were a couple of differences between this year and last year -- the lopsided nature of both games surely playing a factor -- the big difference was undoubtedly the day the games were played. But Bill Hancock, College Football Playoffs' executive director, was reluctant to concede the change of schedule had much to do with the ratings drop (a decline that he called "modest").

"It's not clear how much any one of those factors contributed," Hancock said. "Obviously, we all know that regardless of when the game is played, nothing attracts viewers more than a close game does."

But why change something that was doing so well? The answer is money, of course. The College Football Playoff management committee determined the schedule change when it signed a 12-year contract with ESPN, valued at a reported $7.3 billion, according to USA Today. The deal puts the semifinals on New Year's Eve in 7 of the next 10 years.