The confetti has fallen, the trophy has been awarded, and the Ohio State Buckeyes have secured their first national championship under head coach Ryan Day. The Buckeyes were dominant in the postseason, but this on-field dominance was not necessarily mirrored by the on-screen performance of the overall playoff. Per the Associated Press – average viewership for all of the playoff games was around 15.6 million viewers – roughly on par with the NFL’s most watched Thursday Night Football games. Due to the increased number of playoff games, ESPN claimed that viewers consumed around 36 billion minutes of college football over the course of the 11 game playoff. This is a 63% increase over the previous year’s New Year’s 6 Bowls plus the National Championship – with only 3 of those 7 games having national championship implications. The increase in playoff games from 3 to 11 bodes well for ESPN’s availability to sell additional advertisements, but they seemed to benefit from the same fans watching more games, instead of creating new viewers with the increased spectacle that came with the expanded playoff.

The national championship between Notre Dame and Ohio State averaged 22.1 million viewers – way down from 33.9 million average viewers that watched the Buckeyes beat Oregon for the national championship in 2015, and a 12% decrease from the 25 million viewers that watched last year’s Michigan – Washington national title game. A couple of commonalities with these games – both were broadcasted by ESPN and both featured one team firmly in control of the game for a majority of the action. One advantage that this year’s game should have had was the presence of two huge brands in college football. Ohio State and Notre Dame are true blue bloods, synonymous with tradition and success in college football. Michigan also falls into this category, but Washington certainly is not on the same level in terms of national attention. There aren’t many realistic national championship combinations that feature two bigger brands in the sport than Ohio State and Notre Dame. So why are viewership numbers down? And is there anything to do about it?

The most logical explanation is how long the playoffs seemed to be dragged out this year. The result almost seemed like an oversaturation of playoff games, especially non-competitive games. The additional playoff games also forced the national championship game back even further – now putting it right in the heart of the NFL playoffs, and forcing the CFP committee to schedule games on weeknights to avoid direct conflict with the NFL playoff schedule. 

This was never a real issue in the 4-team playoff and BCS eras. College football has long claimed ownership of the time between Christmas and New Year’s as their own, as the bowl games get bigger and bigger before reaching a crescendo on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day with what is now known as the New Year’s 6 – Citrus, Fiesta, Sugar, Cotton, Orange and Rose. This worked out well for the most part. Semifinal games would be held over the holidays, as part of the New Year’s 6, and then the national championshipship game would follow a week later. Typically, the national championship fell the Monday after the conclusion of the NFL regular season, allowing for attention to be firmly on the college football world before shifting over to the Sunday game for the remainder of the season. Now, we are waiting until January 20th to crown a national champion. Not only has the playoff lost all the momentum of the bowl season by that point, but now they are playing the biggest game of the year the evening after the divisional round of the NFL playoffs – a Saturday and Sunday slate that consistently performs extremely well for the NFL. 

Not only does the extended playoff draw a good deal of media attention away from the semifinals and championship game, but it produces a scheduling nightmare for college football. This year they scheduled their semifinal games on Thursday and Friday due to the NFL’s wild card games that ran Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights. Is this a wiser choice than attempting to go toe-to-toe with the NFL? Most certainly, but is it optimal for the sport and football fans? Probably not. College football’s biggest regular season games and conference championship games all are played on Saturdays, but the three biggest games of the year now must be forced to a weeknight to carve out a space for themselves amidst the NFL’s domination of weekends in January. 

This poses a question to the NFL. Should NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell allow for the CFB Playoff National Championship game to be played in the primetime slot of a Saturday night traditionally reserved for the NFL playoffs? Seems unlikely since this would likely require moving the two Saturday Divisional round games to the 1 P.M. and 4:30 P.M. slot or opting to play 1 game on Saturday afternoon and the remaining 3 on Sunday. This would be a pretty big sacrifice for the NFL. The Washington Commanders @ Detroit Lions game that was played in that window this year averaged 33.6 million viewers according to Fox Sports. This is considerably more than the national championship game this year, and only slightly less than the record for a college football national championship game in the playoff era (33.9 million). So, sacrificing this time slot for college football could be a blow for the NFL, but there is certainly an argument that it is better for the sport overall (and makes for what could be the most memorable football day on the calendar). College football seems out of place when it is not played on a Saturday, and the national championship is no exception to this rule. 

It also may be more likely than would be initially thought. According to Yahoo Sports, Goodell has stated that he has met with the CFP director, Rich Clark, and has said he is “committed” to working with the CFP to ease scheduling conflicts going forward. What exactly this means remains to be seen. It is important to remember that Goodell is holding the cards in this situation, and major changes to the NFL postseason schedule are highly unlikely. But it is certainly something to keep in mind as we hear more media reports around the success, or lack thereof, that came with this year’s CFP.