Collateral Damage: The First Domino of CFP Ratings begins to fall

Source - Despite the efforts of the College Football Playoff committee and some media outlets downplaying the financial hit ESPN took by being forced to televise the two national championship semi-final games on New Year’s Eve, media buyers say the network owes upwards of $20 million in ad make goods for ratings shortfalls for the two games.

ESPN may have gotten a bit greedy when setting its ratings estimates and offering higher guarantee levels to advertisers for the two games, knowing audiences might not flock to their TV sets, despite the optimism of the CFP committee. However, advertisers are concerned about next season’s potential audience levels for the games, which will also be televised on New Year’s Eve. Even if the ratings guarantees by ESPN are set lower, advertisers would prefer the games be moved to New Year’s Day or even on consecutive primetime nights, exclusive of New Year’s Eve, when more people would likely watch.

But CFP committee officials are on record as adamantly supporting the continued airing of the playoff series games on New Year’s Eve as scheduled, which will occur in seven of the remaining 10 years of the 12-year original deal. And that position has been taken even after the 36% combined ratings decline for the two games was disclosed.

Wait just a minute! You're telling me that when TV ratings drop 40 percent from the previous year that there might be consequences?!? Huh, that is all very interesting.

While everyone loves to bash ESPN (looking at me, here), I don't think they are at fault here. I actually believe the ratings drop could be part of a greater plan.

Say what you want about their personalities and on-air talent, but I don't think anyone among us would suggest that ESPN isn't good at what their primary objective is -- broadcasting games. The truth is that ESPN didn't become the unquestioned leader in sports broadcasting with idiots at the controls, and while they do shove original content and programming that insists upon itself down our throats, the powers that be know that the lifeblood of the organization is broadcasting live games. So, I actually think that this current predicament could actually result in a win for the consumer, a rarity today for cable subscribers.

Here's the truth about the College Football Playoff: though packaged differently, it's still the bowl system. In fact, it has unintentionally given the bowl games more power. The BCS only had to cater to cater to the Rose and Sugar four bowls whereas the playoff is now tied to six. The BCS largely could control scheduling while keeping the bowls happy.

In the early years of the BCS, there was an understanding that when your bowl game was the national title game, it would be moved from its traditional date to a stand-alone date after New Year's Day to increase ratings and therefore television money. This meant that the Rose Bowl would be able to keep its coveted 5 p.m. eastern time slot, and additionally, the Sugar Bowl would be able to keep its primetime slot on New Year's Day. The Orange and Fiesta Bowls showed that they didn't care about their time slot or date rather they just wanted a seat at the table.

When the BCS added the stand-alone title game, everyone was able to go back to their traditional time slot as the game was essentially just a new bowl game that rotated among the four BCS bowl sites on a yearly basis. Therefore, the Rose was able to keep its coveted New Years Day slot, and the Sugar Bowl showed that as long as its game was featured in primetime that it would agree to a floating date.

Enter the CFP and more importantly the addition of two more, featured bowl games. The CFP decides that its featured games (semi-finals included), the New Year's Six, will all be played on either New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. This is where everything breaks down.

Much of the blame for the scheduling has been thrown at the Rose Bowl, somewhat deservedly so but not entirely deservedly so. The Rose Bowl would not concede its traditional time slot, and neither would the Sugar Bowl (the silent assassin).

Since ESPN is years away from ever realistically broadcasting the Super Bowl (Don't kid yourself, that's their goal), having the entire college football playoff and the games that go with it, is the next best option, so they're in the business of keeping those games and their executives happy. In addition to the Orange and Fiesta, the Cotton and Peach Bowls were also happy to kiss the ring as they didn't previously have a seat at the adult's table, so the Rose and Sugar Bowls once again were king. It's not a coincidence that they got the first crack at being the semi-finals.

Here's another fact about the Rose and Sugar Bowls, the people that run them saw Gone with the Wind in theaters on opening weekend. They're not really open to change.

But, and this is why, I'm not convinced that the ratings drop isn't part of the plan--cash is the real king. ESPN knew that forcing the hand of the two biggest power players probably wasn't going to be best for business, particularly considering Fox has now very much entered into the fray and NBC has been expanding its game rights collection too. If it tried to bully the two big dogs, they were taking their ball and going home. Therefore, they decided the intellectual children them see the results for themselves.

Ratings are down and now the advertisers (the people that are really paying for this) are pissed, but are you really telling me that Disney and ESPN didn't know what they were doing? Take a look at Disney's purchases.

    

I'm not buying it. Disney didn't become the second-largest media company while ESPN became the largest sports broadcasting company with idiotic decisions, and the decision to play the playoff on New Years Eve at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. were idiotic. You know how we know it was idiotic? Everyone was saying this exact thing when it was announced. The closest thing to a defense that we got was "It's the playoffs. People will still watch." That works for the NFL (fantasy football/gambling implications), a national brand, but it doesn't fly when you're dealing with college football, largely a regional product.

The Super Bowl has about 130 million viewers each year while the highest-rated regular season game in 2015 didn't reach 30 million viewers. Ratings are about bringing in the casual fan. The casual college football fan isn't worried about watching a game that he knows nothing about on New Year's Eve. He's worried about casual sex. Dabo won't make him feel it in the loins, and he certainly won't make anyone yell out YABO! with a stranger after the ball drops. And, that my friends is the reality of it all.

 The Alabama hardcore fan will watch the playoff regardless of scheduling, but that's not the fan that drives ratings. The fan that drives ratings is the guy who's miserably hungover on New Year's Day and just wants to watch some football while not feeling guilty that he has no intention of showering. New Year's Day is college football's day. It's the day most closely associated with the sport. 

The best chance that we have to see real change is that ratings continue to underwhelm and therefore creating less money. I'm willing to bet that that was also the same bet that ESPN took when it agreed to the current playoff schedule.