It’s one of college football’s oldest rivalries, and has always had a Saturday to itself at the end of the regular season, but the changing landscape of college football may cause the Army-Navy game to get moved from its usual spot just before the start of bowl seasob.
Sports Business Journal reported Saturday that the two schools have had early discussions as to when on the schedule the game would be played in the event that the College Football Playoff expansion could cause games to be played on that weekend. Army-Navy has been played in a standalone week every year since 2009.
Ratings Jumped When Army-Navy Stood Alone
Viewership for Army-Navy has grown substantially since being moved from conference champiosnhip weekend in college football to the following Saturday. The game, which averaged less than 3 million viewers in its final game on conference championship weekend in 2008, nearly doubled its audience a year later, to 5.6 million viewers.
Last year’s game, which saw an underdog Navy beat up a ten-win Army team that had won the American conference title a week earlier 31-13, averaged more than 9.8 million viewers, the highest total for the game since 1989.
“We’ve got to try our best to protect that [standalone window], but we also understand the reality of the [CFP] with expansion and the second and third-order effects on conference championships, the regular season, and how that plays out,” Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland, superintendent at West Point told SBJ’s Ben Portnoy. “We can’t just say ‘Oh, we’re going to have our own game and our own day.’ We’ve got to be cognizant of that and, as a result, we have to be adaptable, too.”
One idea floated for the game if forced to move from its current position by the College Football Playoff would be to play it in Week Zero to start off the year. However, with more teams deciding to play on Week Zero, it would not have the same exclusive window.
No matter where Army-Navy moves on the schedule, we know that the only place to find the game on television for the next decade-plus will be CBS. The network extended their rights deal for the game until 2038 last year.
