The College Football Playoff will enter its third season of play in 2016 and it is going to be interesting to see how everything works this year. Last season, the semifinal games were played on New Year’s Eve and ratings suffered because of it.
This year, the games will again be played on New Year’s Eve, but the day falls on a Saturday this year, so that could help some of the ratings. On Monday, the CFP committee released the start times for the two games.
This year’s CFP games will be played at the Fiesta Bowl and Chick-fil-a Peach Bowl in the final cycle of games before the start over next year. The tentative start times are 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. with the sequence of games to be determined on selection day and both games taking place on ESPN.
The Capital One Orange Bowl is scheduled to take place on Friday, December 30, while the The Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual and Allstate Sugar Bowl will take place on Monday, January 2 as the traditional date of New Year’s Day falls on Sunday in 2017.
“The first two years have shown us that the playoff is extremely popular with fans and that we successfully struck an appropriate balance creating a new event while maintaining the great traditions that have enabled college football to hold such an important place in the country’s culture,” CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock said.
The 2016 college football season is still six months away with the CFP still over nine months away. That doesn’t mean it isn’t too early to get excited, right?
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*Featured Photo (above) credit to USA TODAY Sports
