George Schroeder

USA TODAY Sports

After a precipitous drop in TV ratings in its second year, the College Football Playoff has tweaked the schedule for the 2016 season in hopes of drawing and holding more viewers. But executive director Bill Hancock said the Playoff remains committed to playing on New Year’s Eve.

The Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl, which will host the semifinals this season, will begin at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, Dec. 31. Each semifinal would kick off an hour earlier than the semifinals last season.

In addition, the Orange Bowl, which was set to kick off at noon Dec. 31, will move to Friday night, Dec. 30. It’s a more traditional time slot — though not date — for the bowl.

Last season, TV ratings for the Orange and Cotton Bowl semifinals on New Year’s Eve plunged 40%t from the first Playoff in the 2014 season, when the semifinals were played on New Year’s Day. Hancock said the earlier kickoff times could help alleviate some conflicts.

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“We looked at the landscape and we’re confident it will let more fans watch the games,” Hancock said. “In looking at the data, we found that ending the games earlier would let people watch the games and still enjoy their New Year’s Eve festivities.”

Hancock said the changes were only for the 2016 season — and that there are no plans to move the semifinals from New Year’s Eve, as they’re scheduled seven of the next 10 years.

“This is a one-time deal,” Hancock said. “We haven’t talked about the remaining nine years (of the contract). We had the opportunity because it was a Saturday to do this. … We always want to make the games available to more fans. We also will honor the traditions of college football.”

When the College Football Playoff announced its 12-year schedule, its organizers touted the idea of tripleheaders on December 31 and January 1. Hancock said the plan would “change the paradigm of New Year’s Eve,” creating a new tradition that added college football to watching the ball drop in Times Square.

The semifinals had to be played on New Year’s Eve most years, though, because the Rose and Sugar bowls are locked into time slots on New Year’s Day (afternoon and evening, respectively) by separate deals. The semifinals will be played on New Year’s Day only when they’re in the Rose and Sugar.

A year ago ESPN, which is paying the Playoff $7.3 billion over 12 years to televise the games, asked the Playoff’s management committee (made up of the commissioners of the 10 FBS conferences) to move the 2015 semifinals from New Year’s Eve to Saturday, Jan. 2, to take advantage of the weekend. But the commissioners declined.

The management committee decided to tweak the 2016 schedule in a teleconference last week. They had earlier reviewed data presented by ESPN which detailed how viewership dropped hour-by-hour during the Cotton Bowl semifinal, which started at 8 p.m. Eastern.

It’s hard to determine whether the drop-off was due to the time or because Alabama shut out Michigan State 38-0. Another potential factor for the overall decline in ratings was what Hancock called an “inevitable fade in excitement” in the second year of the Playoff compared to the first year. But whatever the factors, and even as they said they had expected at least a slight dip from the first year, Hancock and others admitted the lower ratings were disappointing.

“No one knew for sure about the effect of the noncompetitive nature of the games,” Hancock said. “It was a combination of it being noncompetitive and the time of day. We think this (schedule change) will take care of half of that, to a significant extent. We think by starting an hour earlier, it will allow more people to watch the games.”

If it works in 2016, when New Year’s Eve falls on a Saturday, it wouldn’t address the issue of when New Year’s Eve falls on a weekday — which for many college football fans is a work day followed by a night of celebration. On those occasions, whether at 3 or 4 p.m., the first semifinal would kick off while many are still at work or commuting home. And whether at 7 or 8 p.m., the second game would still likely conflict with New Year’s Eve plans. But that won’t be an issue until the 2018 season.

For the 2017 season, the Playoff semifinals rotate back to the Rose and Sugar Bowls, which will be played on Jan. 1, 2018. The semifinals would again be played on New Year’s Eve after the 2018 season. Hancock said the management committee has not discussed altering the long-term schedule.

“We are committed to this,” he told USA TODAY Sports in January. “Two years does not make a trend. Let’s watch this. Let’s see what happens.”

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