Move the College Football Playoff Games From New Year's Eve

The decision to play the upcoming year's college football games on New Year's Eve is a disaster. None of you agree with it. In fact, tons of you will be working during the afternoon when the college football playoff games start. That's because, newsflash, most people have to work on New Year's Eve.

These games will kick off while it's still mid-afternoon on the West Coast. Hell, even people in the central and mountain time zones will still be working. What's more, New Year's Eve is probably the most overscheduled day of the entire calendar year. If you have to work, you'll rush home with the games already started, sprint around your house trying to gather your kids while your wife yells at you for forgetting to schedule the babysitter early enough in the evening for her to get ready. You'll be trying to monitor the early game while your kids suplex each other on the couches and your wife is definitely going to call you into the bathroom to decide which dress looks better just as the most critical part of the early game. And that's before you even get into a car -- or pay Uber a $150 to drive you five miles while you're frantically clicking refresh on your phone -- and make it to wherever you're heading for the night. Because, trust me, your wife has been scheduling New Year's Eve since mid-May.

What with the dinners and the parties and the social obligations putting the college football playoff on New Year's Eve will lead to more break ups than any event in American history. New Year's Eve already leads the nation in women crying after midnight, can you imagine the hell that's going to ensue when it's coupled with a game that's still airing when the ball drops? Men and women across America are going to be giving kisses to each other with one eye open because it's 4th and 8 in a tie game. Lots of you reading this right now are already cringing at the fights that are going to unspool when you dare to break away from dinner to stand at the bar and watch the games. Let's be clear about this -- putting the playoff games on New Year's Eve is an unmitigated disaster.

With that in mind ESPN has made a smart suggestion -- why not move the college football playoff games to Saturday, January 2nd this upcoming year? That way the two games are played on a SATURDAY -- you know, the day college football generally plays its games -- and the audience able to watch them is as large as possible. (Of course the best result would be to play these games on January 1st every year, but god forbid the Rose Bowl have to be played on a non-January 1st date. The Rose Bowl is to to college football what the moderately attractive girl in a sorority who thinks she's much more attractive than she actually is is to sorority life -- totally destructive and not worth the time it takes to placate.)

To bolster the case to move the games ESPN is forecasting a double digit ratings decline on New Year's Eve. Why? Because it's New Year's Eve, already the most stressful day of the year for most people. And, to repeat, a work day. So what's the problem with moving the games to Saturday in the upcoming year? According to the Sports Business Journal college football's power brokers are balking at moving the games. Their goal is to start a yearly tradition of playing the games on New Year's Eve -- except for when the Rose Bowl hosts the game every third year when the games can take place on the day they should take place every year, on New Year's Day. Why do college football's leaders want to start a yearly tradition of playing the games on New Year's Eve? Because they're idiots bowing down to the Rose Bowl while trying to pretend this idea makes sense.

Can we pause for a moment now and say what tons of college football administrators and media would all like to say but can't because they don't own the site that they write for -- Fuck the Rose Bowl. Why does college football need the Rose Bowl at all? Why should the Rose Bowl be able to hold all of college football hostage? It makes zero sense. Sure, the Rose Bowl is in a great town and it's a majestic setting for a football game, but the area immediately around the Rose Bowl is kind of a dump. And it isn't that close to anywhere you want to spend a lot of time in Los Angeles. My point is pretty simple, if Los Angeles put on a bowl game at the newly proposed NFL stadium, would any less people travel to LA to watch a football game there? Of course not. The Rose Bowl's a soft six that thinks it's a ten. So why does college football continue to genuflect at the Rose Bowl's altar? It's not 1954 anymore.

The college football playoff games should be on January 1 every year. But they're not because of the Rose Bowl. The next best option would be to put these games on the Saturday closest to January 1st, but the leaders of college football are not doing this because they have no concept how much putting the games on New Year's Eve will screw up everything. I suspect this is because when it becomes your job to watch college football games, you stop thinking about the fact that most other people aren't paid to watch college football games. Most other people have to work. So when the games are played matters to average people, but not to big time college football administrators.

Honestly, this is why college football needs a national czar of common sense. I would be happy to be appointed to this role and serve there for free, but I probably won't ever be selected because I just wrote "Fuck the Rose Bowl." And if you write things like "Fuck the Rose Bowl," the Rose Bowl power brokers, who all still think it's 1954 and spend their spare time dancing to Frank Sinatra records, will hire a hit man to knock you off. It's going to be like LA Confidential, a new noir film, "The Rose Bowl Kills Clay Travis," will probably break cinema records in Columbus, Ohio.

Bye, y'all. Glad I got my life insurance taken care of.

Anyway, ESPN's right, the playoff games should be on January 2nd this year. And they should never be played on New Year's Eve. I suspect ESPN has always believed this, but when you want a playoff as badly as ESPN did, you go ahead and buy the TV package figuring you can make changes later. (This, by the way, is what every woman does when she gets married. Buys a rough product and tries to fix us later. Good luck fixing that football addiction on New Year's Eve, ladies). But what do I know, I'm just a gay Muslim trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents.

I do know this, if you have a crazy girlfriend I'd suggest going ahead and breaking up with her around December 1st of this year. Otherwise you might not survive New Year's Eve 2015. College football's power brokers should know this, but they're too busy watching Lawrence Welk reruns to do the right thing for the sport. Remember, these are the same guys who three years ago said that a college football playoff would kill the regular season. It's definitely too much to expect them to be able to schedule games when people can actually watch them.