Dumbest part of College Football Playoff might soon be history

Our brief national nightmare may soon be over. The College Football Playoff is discussing moving its semifinal games off of New Year’s Eve.

The games were held on Dec. 31 for the first time last year. It produced disastrous television ratings (down 36 percent) and widespread fan complaints, mostly from those who couldn’t watch because they had to work. The issues seeped into New Year’s Day viewing, where the anticlimactic nature of the set-up – like a band playing its hit songs first and new stuff last – helped produce further record low ratings.

Now the ill-fated decision is open to review, according to College Football Playoff director Bill Hancock.

“We will be exploring whether there’s a better way with the semifinals,” Hancock said Wednesday at SEC media days in Alabama.

The exploration should be brief. Just about anything would be an improvement.

The fact Hancock mentioned the possibility of the move suggests this is fait accompli. The playoff folks, who previously operated the maligned Bowl Championship Series, are generally loath to admit any issues, challenges or potential changes … until the moment the deal is done. A playoff was never going to happen either, they used to say, because the BCS was so great.

Hancock said nothing would change this year (when the semifinals will be on a Saturday, alleviating the problem) or next (when the Rose and Sugar Bowls, both staged on New Year’s Day, are hosts). After that, though, expect the two games to return permanently to New Year’s Day, which college football has claimed as its own for generations.

“The next two years are not a discussion,” Hancock said. “We have time. We will be thinking about whether New Year’s Eve is the way to go. We will discuss the alternatives. We want to find the best day when the most people can watch the game.”

How about the afternoon and evening of a national holiday, not the afternoon and evening of a work day, which also doubles as a night with set social plans for millions of Americans, particularly young people.

Hancock previously predicted the playoff would rewrite the paradigm of New Year’s Eve. That uphill fight seems abandoned already.

Getting people to eschew a traditional night of celebration to watch football on television was just a small part of the issue. Work was the big one.

The early semifinal game last year between Oklahoma and Clemson kicked off at 4 p.m. ET. There weren’t many parties going on at that time. A lot of people were on the job though, in offices and factories, particularly on the West Coast where it was just 1 p.m.

Ratings for that game, which was competitive well into the third quarter (eventual winner Clemson trailed at the half) was off a whopping 45 percent year over year.

“That was not something we wanted,” Hancock said.

People working is still an issue at night, when restaurants, bars, catering and so on are ramping up staff. So too do hospitals, police, security and other professions. There is no comparison to the number of people at their jobs on New Year’s Day, when much of America settles in and naps.

Much of this was predictable and, indeed, predicted by many.

The playoff went forward with it anyway, namely as a way to preserve the power of six traditional bowl games – Rose, Sugar, Cotton, Orange, Fiesta and Peach/Chik-fil-A. Each gets to host a semifinal game every three years, but the Rose and Sugar refused to budge on their preferred time slots of New Year’s Day afternoon and night, respectively.

Rather than force their hands with counter programming during off years or granting them permanent semifinal status and upsetting four other bowl games, the playoff decided to risk the wrath of tens of millions of customers and work around them.

It didn’t go so well.

Give the commissioners who operate the playoff credit for recognizing and addressing the issue quickly this time. There was no doubt plenty of prodding from broadcast partner ESPN, which originally lobbied against New Year’s Eve semifinals but was ignored.

How could a new setup work? Anything is possible but there are plenty of options.

The historic Rose Bowl could be given a semifinal annually (other college sports have set postseason sites, such as the College World Series and Omaha, Neb.). The Sugar, which has no longstanding hold on New Year’s Day primetime, could be forced to move or deal with a semifinal game being played at the same time (good luck with ratings then).

Or a semifinal could be played before the Rose – at 1 p.m. ET – and then after – at 8 p.m. ET. Or the Rose could have to face some competition (it is unlikely to move it’s game because of its ties with the New Year’s morning Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif.).

How firmly do bowl executives still control the commissioners? Bowl obstruction meant it took decades for an even modest four-team playoff to come online. This is college athletics; cronyism can’t be underestimated.

Whatever it is, “discussions” should lead to action. By the end of the 2018 season, expect three lead-in bowl games on New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day to feature one more non-playoff bowl and then two semifinals.

Ratings will be up. Fan inconvenience will be down. The staging of semifinals on New Year’s Eve will be left to the trash bin of terrible ideas.