Every ESPN PR person was flooding mailboxes and Twitter feeds with protesting-too-much insistence that they were elated to have the College Football Playoff be The New New Year’s Eve Tradition.
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Clemson’s star DE injured in Orange Bowl, expects to play against Alabama
In a statement responding to the complaint, Swinney said: “Players of any faith or no faith at all are welcome in our program”. The spot had party goers in formal wear, balloons, college mascots and celebrities – but no one watching a football game.
The Michigan State-Alabama Cotton Bowl drew a 9.9 rating for ESPN compared to 15.3 for Ohio State-Alabama in the Sugar Bowl last January 1.
Interstate highways reopen in flood-ravaged St. Louis area
In West Alton, Mo., a Mississippi River town near the convergence with the also-elevated Missouri River just north of St. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency on Wednesday as the waters moved south toward his state.
Rounding out the first half of the New Year’s Six, No. 18 Houston defeated No. 9 Florida State 38-24 in The Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl (New Year’s Eve at noon), garnering a 4.0 overnight, up 21% from last year’s Peach Bowl. A year ago, when the semifinal games were played on January 1, the Rose Bowl game commanded a 15.5 rating and the Sugar Bowl drew a 15.3 rating during prime time. ESPN tried hard to persuade them for just this one year to move the semifinals to January 2, which happens to fall on a Saturday with no National Football League playoff games. This is a big increase over last year’s 4.3 average for the December 31 tripleheader (Peach, Fiesta and Orange), though last year’s games, of course, weren’t almost as high-profile.
Overnight quake the largest felt in 14 years on BC’s South Coast
Police on Vancouver Island and along the coast report high call volumes following the natural disaster , but no reports of damage. Washington and B.C. residents felt the effects of a moderate quake that struck Victoria, B.C. late on December 29.
Those figures each were more than 33 percent lower than last season, when the semifinals of the inaugural playoff were held on New Year’s Day. “It’s like asking a coach to talk about a whole game at halftime”.
Thursday’s contest between Clemson and Oklahoma, which began at a time when a chunk of the potential viewing audience in the Western part of the country was still at work, averaged a 9.7 from roughly 4:10-7:50 p.m. ET, and Michigan State-Alabama pulled a 9.9 from roughly 8:20-11:40 p.m. ET.
In case you missed it – and you might have – this year’s College Football Playoff semifinal matchups were on New Year’s Eve.
The dramatic matchups and results of last year’s first College Football Playoff semifinals led to record-breaking cable audiences for ESPN.
The first day of 2015 could not have gone more perfectly for College Football Playoff organizers.
What makes all of this more infuriating is that ESPN recognized the ratings Armageddon it was facing. In all likelihood, they will continue to reflect that on an annual basis as long as the CFP continues to cling to New Year’s Eve as the date for its semifinal games. That recreation additionally drew 28 million viewers.
CFP executive director Bill Hancock acknowledged last summer that ESPN executives had asked to move the semifinals to January 2 this season, but the committee declined. This year’s semis won’t be held on New Year’s Day because those time slots are, until 2026, already allotted to the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl.
This week, ABC daytime soap opera “General Hospital” had characters during the show making direct references to watching the College Football Playoff on New Year’s Eve.
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The Rose and Sugar host the semifinals again on January 1, 2018, following the 2017 season.
