Have signaled that there will be - max - 40 schools that will ultimately fit into their grand scheme. For all of the other alumni and regional fans, college football just became college baseball to you: an interesting little novelty. This “reorganization” move will wipe large chunks of the US off the college football map. Will fans in Utah, Arizona, Virginia, Colorado, Kansas, New York, New England, etc. care if they don’t have a dog at least ostensibly in the hunt? You can’t fit everybody into two conferences. Rarely do business plans work when they shrink the pie while shrinking the number of parties sharing the pie. I think that is what the P2 is doing here - probably inadvertently. I would love to see a regional breakdown of viewership to gauge whether non-P2 regions stopped watching. I know that there are (were?) a lot of rabid playoff fans on this site, but I hated the idea from the very beginning, assuming that it would wreck the college football ecosystem. I hated the idea back when I thought VT would actually be in the club, so now I don’t even like to hear it mentioned. ** Edited by lawhokie at 1/25/2025, 11:59:19 AM

All the bars, hotels, and college dorms weren't included in the Nielsen audience totals until a few years ago. So those earlier years, in theory could be increased by some percentage, making this game's audience look even smaller than it was. Not sure what ESPN was doing with this broadcast, as they did not offer it on either ABC or ESPN+. With ESPN only being in 65 million households now compared to the 90-100 million it had at it's distribution peak, why not put this on ABC like they do with most of their NFL Monday Night Football games? What do you think about that AT&T? I did see that ESPN has the rights to the 2027 Super Bowl, it's first time in the network rotation. You can bet the NFL will be pulling out all the stops it can to make sure ESPN gives that game every exposure channel it can. It's a shame they didn't for this game.

Inauguration definitely overshadowed the game. But they don't have to worry about that happening again until 2053.

balls he had to attend. Big Buckeyes fan and alum apparently.

to go the title game. He probably would've enjoyed himself more, those inaugural events seem kinda tedious (unless you're Kevin Costner in No Way Out) ** Edited by mancunian at 1/24/2025, 8:55:11 AM

King moved into the white house! This was in response to my wife asking him if he knew why Monday was special. He didn't mention the NC game, but he had the other two events mixed up/combined. LOL. Out of the mouths of babes?

to be moved up a couple of weeks. There's no reason the whole thing can't wrap up around January 8 or close to that date.

it doesn't take 7 weeks to play 3 1/2 rounds of a playoff.

a week off before the Super Bowl. Hopefully that's the biggest change for the CFP. It needs to be condensed.

after Thanksgiving, and start the playoffs the following week. Now you finish earlier, which will help ratings, and for most schools keeps it a one semester sport. It also helps the Portal Calendar be done for most schools, so players don’t have to leave their school in a Championship run. *Immediately the P2 Conference Commissioners said they don’t want to lose the money on the CCG when dropping them was mentioned. However, they would make more money by allowing all to play in week 0 because it’s more games.

the week before Thanksgiving. Wrapping up in early January would probably help with the transfer portal as well. January 1 should either be semi-finals or championship game.

There are two problems I'd like to highlight (but this list is far from exhaustive). 1. College football after the New Year is a crap shoot. I think they need to figure out an exclusive and permanent time to be on. In other words, everyone knows when Super Bowl Sunday is approaching. So far, the CFP schedule is all over the place in recent years. And having the title game on a week night is just a weak move. I suggest either doing the playoff early enough to make New Year's Day (1:30 PST) at the Rose Bowl be the title game. And if you don't like that, I'd stretch it out into January to make the CFP Title Game the weekend before the Super Bowl when there is no NFL on that Saturday. It needs to become appointment viewing, and right now, and really since the BCS CG, it has not been. 2. I know the P2 super conferences are all the rage, but making conferences smaller again and bringing back regional intrigue would help with interest in the CFP. All conferences should be round robin. Junk the mega-conference title games and start the tournament a week earlier. ** Edited by Maroon Baboon at 1/23/2025, 10:17:17 AM

possible, but the TV networks with the money are unfortunately driving the bus in a different direction.

These conferences are way too big. Schools barely play half the other conference members in a season.

discussed, do the week 0 OOC rivalry games, and let the Conferences make their money off of that. They have not been done across the board before, so structure that to happen. With more games, they could easily make more money. PS End the season Thanksgiving weekend with in Conference rivalry games, Alabama Auburn and Michigan Ohio State in Conference pull the best ratings, have more of them.

of December.

I'll bet that's when ratings started falling. I'm only half kidding because I think he is terrible at it and I'm surprised they have given him such a prominent role. I did have the game on in the background this year, but it was on the skycast channel with no announcers and it was quite nice that way with just the stadium noise. Regarding the teams though, history says that only a select few schools are worthy. In the past 30 years, only 5 times has the national title been won by a non-P2 school. 3 ACC teams have those five titles (FSU, UM, Clemson). All the other titles, going back to the 1994 season, are now sitting in the P2. ** Edited by HokieAl at 1/23/2025, 10:41:26 AM

Dan Fouts was with Keith Jackson in the booth for the Texas-USC title game. Then Herbstreit came into that booth the next season, I think with Musberger, or maybe with Jackson if he stuck around another year or two. For my money, the best booth was Brad Nessler with Todd Blackledge.

Note, I'm showing what conference the teams are currently in (not what they were in at the time). I did it this way to see how much impact there has been from consolidation in the P2. One note I will make is to call out the Nick Saban effect. He joined the SEC in 2000 at LSU and got them a title. Then when he went to Alabama in 2007, the SEC overall just exploded for national title dominance. Since 2006, only three title games have not had an SEC team in the game (and two of those were the most recent two years). And the SECN didn't start until 2014 so the rise of the SEC happened first and then they rode the wave. ** Edited by HokieAl at 1/23/2025, 11:22:15 AM

but he never shuts up. How about letting the game speak for itself once in a while.

Conferences when they made it. The most important point is that as they are focusing on a handful of schools, the ratings are going down for a decade. That’s a big long term problem. Alumni and fans of the other schools are losing interest, which almost always if not always, will catch up with you, like it did NASCAR.

I'm not a fan of the B10 or SEC (or ND that much), so tuning in to watch the lesser of two evils leaves me with little rooting interest. My analogy is my dad is a huge Yankee fan. He watches other MLB games if it has some impact on the Yankees (eg: AL East standings, but he won't watch any other games. Most people don't watch sports for the sake of watching the sport. They watch because they have a rooting interest. If you disenfranchise lots of people, they will lose interest. Short term greed results in long term loss.

Enticing people to bet on games gives them a rooting interest in contests they may otherwise never watch. I used to be an exception to your premise. Up until about 5 years ago, I would watch as many college football games as I could every Saturday, regardless of who was playing. I couldn't get enough of it. But the frequent transfers and NIL payments have ruined it, as far as I'm concerned, so now I refuse to watch any of it. I have been completely disenfranchised, and I won't go back.

Model. Ironically I am a Red Sox fan and I always joke saying I pull for the Red Sox and whoever the Yankees are playing.🤣 Because the Yankees are almost always so good, it effects the Red Sox. Retail is very transactional and wholesale is very relationship oriented. The TV networks more than any are run by transactional people. They don’t get the relationship side of the business.? They don’t get that viewership will go up with more teams having a chance. They don’t get or at least act like having Arizona State doing well, long term brings in more fans. Great post, you nailed it!