Playoff semifinal schedule tweaked

Revisions shift most games to Saturdays or New Year’s Day.

The College Football Playoff has altered the schedule for its national semifinals after last season’s games on New Year’s Eve — a weekday — drew disappointing TV ratings and widespread fan complaints.

Playoff executive director Bill Hancock announced Thursday that semifinal games through at least the 2025 season will be played on Saturdays or New Year’s Day. The only exception will be the 2021 season, when the semifinals will be played on New Year’s Eve — a Friday — because that will be the federally observed New Year’s holiday that year.

“We tried to do something special with New Year’s Eve, even when it fell on a weekday,” Hancock said in a statement. “But after studying this to see if it worked, we think we can do better. These adjustments will allow more people to experience the games... (Our) previous call is reversed.”

TV ratings for the semifinals fell about 40 percent last season from the 2014 season, when the games were played on New Year’s Day in the debut of the four-team playoff.

The scheduling change won’t affect this season’s semifinals, scheduled for Dec. 31 in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Atlanta and the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz. Those games will remain on the same date as originally scheduled because New Year’s Eve falls on a Saturday.

The scheduling change, however, will affect the date of the national semifinal when it returns to the Peach Bowl in the 2019 season. That game will shift to Dec. 28, a Saturday.

Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl President and CEO Gary Stokan called the change “a huge win” for college football fans and the Atlanta bowl.

“This will make it easier for fans to travel to and enjoy our game, and it will create more attractive television broadcast windows as well,” Stokan said in a statement. “In consulting with the College Football Playoff throughout this process, we absolutely agreed this is the best possible move.”

The semifinals rotate among six bowls — the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton, Peach and Fiesta — with each hosting a semi once every three years. The Rose, Sugar and Orange are assured spots in the rotation through the 2025 season and the Peach, Cotton and Fiesta through at least the 2019 season.

Reflecting the schedule change, here are the dates and sites of semifinal games in future seasons:

2016 season: Saturday, Dec. 31, Fiesta and Peach

2017 season: Monday, Jan. 1, Rose and Sugar

*2018 season: Saturday, Dec. 29, Cotton and Orange

*2019 season: Saturday, Dec. 28, Fiesta and Peach

2020 season: Friday, Jan. 1, Rose and Sugar

2021 season: Friday, Dec. 31, Orange and TBD

2022 season: Saturday, Dec. 31, bowls TBD

2023 season: Monday, Jan. 1, Rose and Sugar

*2024 season: Saturday, Dec. 28, Orange and TBD

*2025 season: Saturday, Dec. 27, bowls TBD

* indicates seasons in which the schedule changed