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Morning Edition

December 31, 2024

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Want to attend a CFP quarterfinals game? Good news: You can buy a ticket to three out of the four for under $40. We explain why.

— David Rumsey [[link removed]], Eric Fisher [[link removed]], and Colin Salao [[link removed]]

College Football Playoff Ticket Prices Plummet for Quarterfinals—With 1 Exception [[link removed]]

Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images

Ticket demand for the College Football Playoff’s first quarterfinal matchups is substantially lower than it was for the debut of first-round games.

Traditional New Year’s Six bowl games will host the next round of action [[link removed]] kicking off Tuesday night in Arizona, before a tripleheader of games across the country on Wednesday (all times ET):

Fiesta Bowl, 7:30 p.m.: (6) Penn State–(3) Boise State Peach Bowl, 1 p.m.: (5) Texas–(4) Arizona State Rose Bowl, 5 p.m.: (8) Ohio State–(1) Oregon Sugar Bowl, 8:45 p.m.: (7) Notre Dame–(2) Georgia

As of Monday afternoon, the get-in price for the Rose Bowl on major secondary ticketing platforms was nearly $200, but the cheapest seats for the other three games all cost less than $40. In the first round, some get-in prices were nearing $1,000 [[link removed]] in the days leading up to the game.

ESPN platforms will exclusively broadcast the rest of the CFP, following an impressive 10.6 million average game audience from the first round [[link removed]]—across ESPN and TNT Sports platforms. Last season, the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl hosted CFP semifinal games that averaged 23.2 million viewers on ESPN platforms.

New Look, Same Story?

While the quarterfinals are set to look and feel much different than on-campus first-round games, the CFP’s unique format could lead to some similarly lopsided results on the field.

Oregon, Georgia, Boise State, and Arizona State are coming off first-round byes, thanks to their respective conference championships [[link removed]] that resulted in the top four Playoff seeds.

But after all four home favorites blew out their underdog visitors [[link removed]] in the first round, the expanded CFP’s new automatic qualifying structure [[link removed]] has led to two lower seeds being double-digit favorites in the quarterfinals.

Oddsmakers expect Texas and Penn State, which were ranked Nos. 3 and 4 in the final CFP rankings of the regular season, to win big over Arizona State and Boise State, respectively. Boise State finished No. 9 and Arizona State No. 11 in the final CFP rankings, but were the third- and fourth-highest-ranked conference champions.

Meanwhile, No. 1 Oregon is actually a slight underdog to No. 8 Ohio State. Georgia, which will be without injured starting quarterback Carson Beck, is favored slightly over Notre Dame.

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From Scandal to Stardom: Commanders Playoff Push Marks New Chapter [[link removed]]

Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

The record-setting, $6.05 billion purchase of the Commanders by Josh Harris was premised in large part on reviving a long-suffering but still-beloved franchise. The team returning to the playoffs with their best season in more than three decades provides an early sign of just how far Harris has come so far in that effort.

The Commanders clinched a playoff spot Sunday night with a 30–24 overtime win over Atlanta, marking the team’s first postseason berth since Harris completed the historic deal in July 2023 [[link removed]]. The victory, Washington’s 11th of the season, clinched the franchise’s winningest campaign since a 14-2 run in 1991 that culminated with a victory in Super Bowl XXVI—their third and still most recent championship.

Long mired in scandal and competitive malaise under the embattled, 24-year tenure of former owner Dan Snyder, the Commanders are quickly becoming the proverbial team nobody wants to face as the current No. 6 seed in the NFC.

“The fan base waited a long time for this,” said star rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels. “I really can’t put into words how much it means to them.”

Growing Pains

While the team’s turnaround has been rapid, it certainly wasn’t immediate, and there were plenty of bumps along the initial path. As Harris gained control of the team just days before the start of 2023 training camp, there was little he could do to change the initial trajectory, and it showed as Washington limped to a 4-13 record last year.

Even as the team hit the one-year mark of the Harris era this past summer, there wasn’t a lot of hope that the situation was improving [[link removed]], and the Commanders nickname is still unpopular locally [[link removed]] and nationwide [[link removed]].

Several critical things, however, have since happened. Daniels, the No. 2 pick in the 2024 NFL draft, has been the revelation, on and off the field, that Chicago thought it was getting and haven’t gotten from top pick Caleb Williams, and he is now a heavy favorite to win the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year award. Commanders players have bought into the system of head coach Dan Quinn and GM Adam Peters, each in their first year with the team and part of a series of key moves under Harris to reshape the franchise leadership.

Fans have also responded meaningfully, with an attendance spike at Northwest Stadium seen in 2023 essentially holding this season. Perhaps more important, though, the facility is no longer the overwhelming haven for visiting-team fans that it was for many years during the Snyder era, and instead has seen a resurgent energy from the home faithful. The Commanders also recently hired former Campbell Soup Co. CEO Mark Clouse [[link removed]] as their new president.

Stadium Matters

Beyond this season’s playoffs, the next big step for the Commanders will be deciding on the location of a planned new stadium—an issue that has dogged the franchise for years across the tenures of both Snyder and Harris. A bill to transfer control of the RFK Stadium land from federal authorities to the District of Columbia passed unanimously [[link removed]], reviving that former site of the Washington team as a potential future one.

Sites in Maryland and Virginia, however, are still under various levels of discussion, too.

“This bill will create an equal playing field so that all potential future locations for the home of the Washington Commanders can be fairly considered and give our franchise the opportunity to provide the best experience for all our fans,” Harris said after the bill’s passage.

NBA TV Ratings Shift Again, As ESPN Now Up 5% for the Season [[link removed]]

Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

The NBA didn’t wait until the new year to try to turn around its viewership narrative.

Following a five-game Christmas day slate that delivered an average of 5.34 million viewers, 87% more viewers compared to last year, the league announced Monday that viewership on ESPN platforms is now up 5%. Total league viewership is still down 3% when mixing in TNT—which did not have the rights to any of the Christmas games—but it’s a massive change from the 18% drop the league was looking at before the holiday.

Other positive notes from the holiday include the most-watched game of the season between the Warriors and Lakers, which averaged 7.9 million viewers. The Christmas opener between the Knicks and Spurs drew nearly five million viewers, which makes it the most-watched noon ET game since 2011. The finale between the Suns and Nuggets was the most-watched late-night game ever with 3.9 million viewers.

It is worth noting the NBA simulcast all five games on ABC, which it last did in 2022. Compared to 2022, this year’s Christmas slate is up around 23%. However, another advantage the league had this year is the NFL— despite setting streaming records on Netflix [[link removed]]—only scheduled two games on the holiday rather than the three it played over the last two years.

Still, the news provides positive momentum for the NBA as the season has been marred by rampant speculation [[link removed]] over the cause of the viewership decline through the first two months. The games themselves were also all entertaining, with all being decided by 10 points or less, which could help carry over more fans into 2025.

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2024 in Charts: MLB Megadeals

It’s impossible to talk about player contracts without touching on Major League Baseball. Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million deal, which was reported in December 2023, was trumped a year later by Juan Soto, who agreed to a 15-year, $765 million deal with the Mets [[link removed]] this month. Soto’s deal does not have the deferrals included in Ohtani’s deal which reduced its current-day value, as calculated by MLB, to $460 million.

Front Office Sports reporter Colin Salao put together eight charts showcasing the shifts we saw in 2024. For the other seven, you can read his full story here [[link removed]].

Conversation Starters Kenny Pickett grew up an Eagles fan and was an All-American at Pittsburgh. On Sunday, in his first start for Philadelphia, he passed for one touchdown and ran for another as the Eagles clinched the NFC East [[link removed]]. Saquon Barkley became the ninth player in NFL history to rush for 2,000+ yards. He has up to $2 million in bonuses to earn this year, including $500,000 for finishing as the rushing yards leader. Check out [[link removed]] the rest. The PGA Tour released a drone tour of its new studio HQ in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Take a look [[link removed]]. Editors' Pick Jimmy Carter Started Super Bowl Winner White House Visits [[link removed]]by Alex Schiffer [[link removed]]Carter was the first president to host the Super Bowl champs at the White House. Question of the Day

Will the NBA end this regular season with higher or lower TV ratings than last season?

Higher [[link removed]] Lower [[link removed]]

Monday’s results: 53% of respondents thought all three of Travis Hunter, Shedeur Sanders, and Cam Ward would be top-five picks in April’s NFL Draft

Advertise [[link removed]] Awards [[link removed]] Learning [[link removed]] Events [[link removed]] Video [[link removed]] Podcast [[link removed]] Written by David Rumsey [[link removed]], Eric Fisher [[link removed]], Colin Salao [[link removed]] Edited by Or Moyal [[link removed]]

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