The accepted definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. One can not accuse the College Football Playoff of insanity. They have tried everything short of arranging the outcomes of games to reclaim their TV ratings from year one. After eight years – and within sight of the end of the current system – they finally got close.
Indulge me for a single paragraph if you know the reason why, If you do not, it is a simple summary: The Rose Bowl. Every third year, when the Rose Bowl hosts a national semifinal, the ratings suddenly spike. This was the year one formula, the Rose hosting semifinal number one and the Sugar Bowl hosting game two just after. It was so successful that it convinced the organizers that it was absolutely necessary to have the two games played back-to-back.
This created an issue. The playoff semifinals could be played on New Year’s Day only once every third year. Few, if any, observers would argue the best spot for the semifinals is anywhere other than on New Year’s Day. It is that belief that made the decision to move the games off that day in the non-Rose Bowl years puzzling. The Rose Bowl is a ratings winner for ESPN. Last year it equaled the audience of the semifinals games from the previous day. Why wouldn’t anyone realize that a semifinal game, followed by the Rose Bowl, followed by semifinal game two would be a massive win for ESPN?
Finally, the planets aligned for the College Football Playoffs and ESPN. They got programs with big national brands playing close games on a New Year’s Eve that happened to fall on a Saturday. It would be easier to spill your spice cabinet in a mixing bowl and replicate the Coca-Cola recipe than replicate the events that led to Saturday’s semifinal audience.
TCU’s thrilling 51-45 Fiesta Bowl win over Michigan drew an audience of 21.4 million viewers on ESPN, the 6th best Semifinal audience ever and 3rd best in the early window. Georgia’s 42-41 Peach Bowl win, just as the ball dropped in Times Square, reached 22.1 million viewers on ESPN. That was the most-watched Semifinal game in the late window since the inaugural year of 2014. It was also a top 20 cable telecast all time.
These numbers are massive wins for ESPN. So is bowl season as a whole. You don’t have to look far to find an old school football fan eager to remind you the bowls don’t have the same meaning they once did.
They aren’t wrong. Bowl games meant more in the archaic system of poll voters selecting the national champion. In those “good old days”, New Year’s Day could roll around with as many as four teams alive for the national championship and none of those teams playing one another.
Bowls used to matter much in the same way the telegraph, newspaper, horse and buggy and oil lamps used to matter. They had their day until we found a better system that made them a little less useful. The BCS was the first system to guarantee the top two teams would play for the championship. The playoffs added two more teams to that mix, each system made the other bowls a little less meaningful.
Even the expanded playoffs will not kill the bowls for one simple reason; people still watch. Don’t believe me? 3.5 million people watched 7-5 Wake Forest beat 6-6 Missouri in the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl. That’s roughly 3.4 million more people than know what Gasparilla even means. The only non-NFL live sporting event with a bigger audience that week was the Christmas Day Milwaukee-Boston NBA game. That was one of five NBA Christmas Day games, by the way, the Gasparilla Bowl beat the other four.
Even smaller bowl game audiences, like the 822,000 viewers that watched UAB beat Miami Ohio in the Bahamas Bowl, are the biggest audiences those teams will have all season. As long as bowl games have viable sponsors and this type of viewership, the UAB’s and Miami Ohio’s of the world will gladly accept their invites.
Bowl games have become largely exhibition in their nature. Championships aren’t on the line, players are opting out and coaches have left for other jobs. But people still watch in large numbers because we are a nation that has a football addiction.
People have proven they want to watch bowl games and they do so in large numbers. The networks not giving them as many opportunities as possible to do so would be, well, insanity.
Ryan Brown is a columnist for Barrett Sports Media, and a co-host of the popular sports audio/video show ‘The Next Round’ formerly known as JOX Roundtable, which previously aired on WJOX in Birmingham. You can find him on Twitter @RyanBrownLive and follow his show @NextRoundLive.
