ESPN failed to get the job done in the College Football Playoff Selection Show
It took twenty-two minutes to unveil the first team and another 12 to unveil the entire field
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What was ESPN doing?
ESPN has been hyping the first-ever twelve team College Football Playoff field for what has seemed to be years — it’s only been for the last few months of the 2024 college football regular season. So when it came time for the the announcement of the field today at noon ET/9 a.m. PT, not only did the Alleged Worldwide Leader drag it out, but it threw in a commercial break to boot to make viewers wait.
It took 22 minutes for ESPN to start with the overall number one seed, Oregon and another 12 minutes for the network to finish unveiling the rest of the 12-team playoff.
The whole shebang started with the panel of host Rece Davis, Greg McElroy, Joey Galloway in bucolic Bristol, CT plus Kirk Herbstreit and Nick Saban located in remote locations discussing the low-hanging fruit of whether Alabama or SMU should be included in the playoff. This took the entire “A” block of the show. There was no need for this discussion to take that long.
By comparison, the NCAA Basketball Tournament Selection Show that’s produced by CBS and TNT Sports usually gets right to the unveiling of the first region within the first three minutes. CBS and TNT Sports learned their lesson after a couple of attempts to drag out the announcements.
However, ESPN felt that since this was a four-hour show with announcements of not just the playoff, but the all of the postseason bowls, why not make viewers wait? And ESPN certainly did that by forcing viewers to endure an extended “A” block followed by an extensive commercial break. This is not acceptable. I understand that ESPN wants to build the drama, but there’s no need to make people wait twenty-two minutes.
Finally when the entire field was announced, it was 12:34 p.m. ET. In addition, Rece Davis dragged out the announcement of the final team and he admitted doing as such. By that time, former ESPN’er Brett McMurphy, now of the Action Network, had leaked that Alabama would be out of the CFB Playoff and SMU would be in.
McMurphy wrote on Bluesky, “Breaking: SMU is in @CFBPlayoff and Alabama is out, sources told Action Network.”
ESPN could have made this a much better show by beginning to unveil the top four seeds within the first five minutes, but it failed to do that so it felt that it was better to drag things out. CBS/TNT Sports have learned that you can unveil early and viewers will stay for the analysis.
ESPN feels there should be debate early and debate often, then take a commercial break to force drama and then unveil. By that time, you have an angry audience and the anger on social media.
ESPN’s coverage of college football is quite good especially its game coverage and on College GameDay which has become a cultural phenomenon, however, studio shows like the College Football Playoff Rankings Show and this latest edition of the College Football Playoff Selection Show did the network no favors.
By not revealing at least some of the field in the first block, ESPN treated viewers like little children, making them on their hands and wait. This is not respecting your audience. This was the show that had the panel talking down to viewers and not giving them the benefit of the doubt.
The show lasted until 4 p.m. ET unveiling all of the bowls, but most of the viewers had left for NFL games at 1 p.m. The damage had been done and the field was revealed.
It did not have be that way.
CFB Playoff Facts and Figures
ESPN has rights to the College Football Playoff and it will have two first-round games, air all of the quarterfinals, semifinals and the championship game. It has sublicensed two first-round games to TNT, but will produce and staff the contests.
The first round starts on Friday, December 20 in primetime with Indiana at Notre Dame airing on ESPN and ABC. This will mark the first time ESPN will have a Notre Dame home game since 1990:
And if you have to go back even farther when ABC aired a Fighting Irish home game:
Sean McDonough, Greg McElroy and Molly McGrath will call ESPN’s first visit to Notre Dame Stadium and expect to see an on-site presence from the GameDay crew there as well.
The games that will be shown on TNT on December 21, SMU at Penn State (noon ET) and Clemson at Texas (4 p.m. ET), will go up against an NFL Week 16 doubleheader, Houston at Kansas City (NBC/Telemundo/Universo, 1 p.m.) and Pittsburgh at Baltimore (Fox, 4:30 p.m.). The SMU-Penn State game will be called by Mark Jones and Roddy Jones with Quint Kessenich on the sidelines while Clemson-Texas will be helmed by Dave Pasch, Dusty Dvoracek and Taylor McGregor.
The Sean McDonough team and Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Holly Rowe will call the semifinals even though they’re not listed as of yet. That depends on the matchups.
The first round may end up being blowouts, but expect Indiana-Notre Dame and Tennessee-Ohio State, both to be simulcast on ESPN and ABC to draw well. And if they get NFL-type numbers, somewhere in the 15-18 million viewers range, look for the College Football Playoff to expand to 14 teams as quickly as next season and then 16 in 2026.
Those who run the College Football Playoff love the fact that there was plenty of talk about rankings, which teams should go in and which conference should get multiple bids just like the NCAA Basketball Tournament so I would think that the playoff would want to expand as quickly as possible. And it would give more inventory to ESPN which can either sublicense to TNT or keep them for itself.
Overall, the maiden voyage of the 12-team playoff is going to be watched carefully and there will be tweaks for next year. If there’s a 14-ream field next season, just know that the officials running the College Football Playoff will feel that they have hit the lottery and will want to get more money to keep the concept going.
Last Thoughts
Coming up in the Media Notebook tomorrow:
Handicapping the bids for the FIFA Women’s World Cup and why didn’t ESPN go in?
What Netflix needs to do for its NFL Christmas doubleheader to build trust.
Has Apple missed the boat to build a sports portfolio?
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