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Future College Football Playoff Semifinal Dates Moved

After a failed attempt to make New Year’s Eve a College Football Playoff tradition, the CFP announced Thursday that some of the semifinal dates will be moved for upcoming years.

The CFP decided to change the dates of the playoff semifinals in four of seven years when those games were scheduled for New Year’s Eve. They now will instead be played on the preceding Saturday. The other three years, Dec. 31 falls on a Saturday or is designated a Federal holiday.

“We had healthy discussions with a lot of people who love college football and we concluded that making these changes would be the right thing to do for our fans,” CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock said in a statement.

“We tried to do something special with New Year’s Eve, even when it fell on a weekday,” Hancock continued. “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 they enjoy so much. For these four years, our previous call is reversed.”

The change will not take effect until the 2018 season.

TV ratings for the last year’s semifinal playoff games played on New Year’s Eve were significantly down. Those ratings dropped 40 percent from the 2014 semifinals, which were played on New Year’s Day.

ESPN’s agreement to broadcast the Playoff is $7.3 billion over 12 years.

Here is the revised schedule for the semifinal playoff games

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