ESPN sees significant decline in CFP semis viewership on New Year’s Eve

Sports Illustrated ^ | January 1, 2016 | Richard Deitsch

[C19fan]

The college football public has spoken loudly: New Years Eve is not a popular choice for the College Football Playoff semifinals.

ESPN drew 18,552,000 viewers for its Cotton Bowl broadcast of Alabama’s 38–0 win over Michigan State, while the Orange Bowl matchup featuring Clemson’s 37–17 victory over Oklahoma drew 15,640,000 viewers. Both playoff games last year drew just over 28 million viewers. The first playoff semifinal was down 45% in viewership versus last year; the late semifinal was down 34.4%.

[C19fan]

This might go down with New Coke as one of the worst marketing decisions ever.

[CaptainMorgantown]

Expect the sports talk radio collective to begin the drumbeat in unison Monday morning: “It’s all because we don’t have an 8 team playoff. Four teams is not enough. We need an 8 team playoff... “

[CaptainMorgantown]

Expect the sports talk radio collective to begin the drumbeat in unison Monday morning: “It’s all because we don’t have an 8 team playoff. Four teams is not enough. We need an 8 team playoff... “

[RayChuang88]

Now under ENORMOUS pressure from ESPN's advertising partners, that cable channel now has two choices:

1. Force the Tournament of Roses committee to move the Rose Bowl game to New Year's Eve (maybe a 4 pm PST start) during the years the Rose Bowl doesn't host a Coilege Football Playoff (CFP) game or ESPN drops the Rose Bowl from the CFP hosting rotation.

2. Make the Rose Bowl a permanent first CFP game, but move up the start time slightly earlier than 5 pm EST.

I wouldn't be surprised that ESPN and the ToR committee chooses the latter, since it would allow the Rose Bowl to stay on New Year's Day and we get a new, continuing tradition of one of two CFP games always being a Rose Bowl.

[OL Hickory]

I got tired of the constant lecturing from espn..
especially when costas gave a speech on gun rights.
ESPN has become the MSNBC of the sports world.
try fox 1 sports-— for SPORTS with no politics

[oh8eleven]

The first playoff semifinal was down 45% in viewership versus last year; the late semifinal was down 34.4%.
Tired of watching spoiled, ungrateful thugs; tired of watching all the "look at me" nonsense; tired of all the hype as if any of this means something.

[Kozy]

Think football is on a downward slope both college and professional. Oakland, San Diego and St. Louis to a small degree that are not emptying their wallets to the thieves of the NFL to make billionaires even richer.
ESPN is also suffering from cable cut. When they award woman of the year to Bruce Jenner, people turn away and find another show.
I don’t watch ESPN and I did when they had the World Series of slow pitch softball. Disney is suffering from ESPN cable cut. They get 45% of their profits from ESPN. No more.
Football is dying before my eyes

[bubbacluck]

I don’t have cable so I couldn’t watch it even if I wanted to.

[JJHLH1]

I cut the cable cord 2 years ago and never looked back. I save over $1200 each year and it’s painless. Definitely one of the best decisions I’ve ever made! Just get a digital antenna to plug into the back of your tv (better signal than compressed cable!) and a Roku for streaming. You will have more content than you could ever watch. I got tired of all the political correctness on ESPN. They should just stick to sports.

[canuck_conservative]

Aren’t the teams that get to these playoff games all supposed to be sorta good?

So why all the boring, one-sided blowouts over the last 2 days? No real back-and-forth at all!!

What a PR disaster for college football.

[SoCal Pubbie]

The Rose Bowl is scheduled for Dec. 31 this year (2016) because Jan. 1, 2017 falls on a Sunday. However, the game is not a semifinal.

[BwanaNdege]

Put the Bowl games back on Broadcast TV, or at least make them accessible to those of us without cable TV, and they would gain millions of viewers.

(BTW, I detest ESPN)

[meyer]

Well, part of it is that we can keep tabs on the games on our electronic devices, iPhones, etc. So rather than waste the whole day watching the games (particularly if we don’t have a dog in that race), we can go about our daily lives and chores while keeping tabs on the game on our phone.

It doesn’t help that they’re over-calling the “targeting” and such, trying to turn football into badminton to please the ‘fruits and nuts’ lobby. It’s a semi-violent sport. If people don’t like that, they don’t have to play.

[heye2monn]

[[[”Expect the sports talk radio collective to begin the drumbeat in unison Monday morning: “It’s all because we don’t have an 8 team playoff. Four teams is not enough. We need an 8 team playoff”]]]

We need a 16-team play-off, round-robin, best two-out-of-three matches. Extend the college season into February for a head-to-head with Super Bowl. Everyone gets a trophy.

[Kozy]

Bruce Jenner is not a woman ESPN!!!! I don't care what your perverted minds think, the world knows that Bruce Jenner is a man, a confused man but a man. You are stupid.
Here is the rightful winner of woman of the year 2015, Lauren Hill. Facing death due to an inoperable brain tumor, she wanted to play college basketball. She did!! She is woman, a hero and the only person who never gave up.
When Bruce Jenner goes back into the closet, tosses his wigs out for a bald cut, no more high heels but wing tips, no designer gowns but Men's Warehouse suits will you take back his Woman of the Year Award and give it to Lauren

[P.O.E.]

Maybe if they stuck to football instead of all the soap opera I might think about it.

[max americana]

BSPN always makes sure that fag players get the top headlines. Of course they have a lefty agenda. And Costas makes me wanna puke. Whenever I hear that asshole talk, I want to break my HDTV if it weren’t for the price of the TV.

[PAR35]

I would expect low ‘end of the game’ numbers for the Rose Bowl mismatch, as well. Doing a better job of matching opponents to avoid blowouts would help the ratings.

EVERY Jan 1 game was at least a 3 score blowout. Notre Dame played it the closest, only being blown out by 16 points.

On the 31st, Peach bowl was only a 14 point margin; Orange was 20 points and Cotton was 28 points.

[apocalypto]

I agree. No way is Bruce J. a woman. How can a woman have male sex organs? Revolting to chose him over Lauren Hill!

[Snickering Hound]

Expect the sports talk radio collective to begin the drumbeat in unison Monday morning: “It’s all because we don’t have an 8 team playoff. Four teams is not enough. We need an 8 team playoff... “

Sounds good to me, it would at least make some of those pre-Christmas bowl games watchable.