Should ESPN and College Football Playoff Officials Risk Competing with the NFL?

ESPN is in the best possible spot as the leader for college and pro football television rights. It also happens to be in the worst imaginable spot. And college football's new, wildly successful postseason may get a reality check because of it.

John Ourand and Michael Smith of the Sports Business Journal reported on Monday that the College Football Playoff is "under pressure on two fronts to adjust future schedules for its semifinals and championship games."

Primarily, the NFL has long considered expanding its playoffs. The possibility exists that another Wild Card Game could fall on the same night, a Monday, as major college football's national championship. From the Journal: 

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Sources say NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell initiated a series of high-level meetings with some of the CFP’s most influential commissioners, including the SEC’s Mike Slive and the Big Ten’s Jim Delany. Goodell approached the commissioners to discuss the potential impact an NFL playoff expansion would have on the CFP championship game.

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If the NFL ends up expanding the number of teams that make its postseason, the league would need two more TV windows to account for the new games. In separate meetings, Goodell told the college commissioners that any playoff expansion likely would put a wild-card game on Monday night, sources said.

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The NFL is king, and it knows it. Everyone knows it—ESPN, college football and fans alike. Is the NFL arrogant for kicking down the door and trying to raid college football's home? Absolutely, but the NFL is also the most popular sport in America. Expecting others to pack up and move for you comes with that territory.

For college football and ESPN, that likely means moving the national championship date, lines previously drawn in the sand be damned.

"We picked Monday night because it was open and it was the best night for our game. We announced that in June 2012," playoff executive director Bill Hancock told the Journal. "We established that our game was going to be on Monday night for 12 years."

What if there's no choice? By Hancock's own admission in the article, "the fans would be the losers if they had to choose" between a Wild Gard Game and the college football national championship. 

Beyond having the reservation made first, here's what college football is up against if it has to move the date: 

Eric Gay/Associated Press

The School Year

You can bet there will be a lot of resistance among college football bigwigs about pushing the national championship date back any further. You can bet house money the primary reason is going to be academics. Since the CFP contract says the game must be played on a Monday, the first option would be to push it back a week. 

This year's national championship between Ohio State and Oregon was on Jan. 12. For reference, Ohio State began spring classes that day. Oregon's winter term classes began on Jan. 5. 

College football may be run as a major business, but as long as athletes are going to classes, going further into the semester/term is going to get some pushback. That pushback might not be insurmountable—after all, the only thing that's changing is when athletes are gone, not how much—but there will be some initial outcry. 

And if the playoff is pushed back to the third Monday in January, it will fall on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. There aren't a lot of great Mondays in January. 

Fan Attendance

Another alternative would be moving the game from a Monday to a midweek date. Do that, though, and good luck getting anyone to go see it in person. 

A big reason why ESPN is also pushing the CFP to move the 2015-16 semifinals from New Year's Eve (a Thursday) to Jan. 2 (a Saturday) is fan attendance/interest. Stewart Mandel of Fox Sports notes this in his column about the ESPN/CFP/NFL conundrum. 

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Even CFP organizers would have a hard time denying that playoff games on a Saturday are more fan-friendly than playoff games on a Thursday afternoon. Or that asking your spouse to stay in and watch football on a Saturday night is far less problematic than on ... New Year's Eve. Same goes for traveling fans who would no longer have to take off multiple days of work to go to Dallas or Miami.

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It's the same line of thinking for why a midweek game would be a disaster. Few fans could swing that kind of trip because of work or other commitments. 

The NFL Draft Deadline

A potentially fascinating consequence of pushing the CFP championship game back would be the deadline for underclassmen declaring for the NFL draft. This year, that deadline was Jan. 15, three days after the national championship. 

One game shouldn't make that much of a difference for a player contemplating leaving early. However, making that decision before the national championship could put an athlete in an interesting spot. What if that one game adds more momentum for a player like Ohio State quarterback Cardale Jones? What if it hurts a player's draft stock a touch, like it did with Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota?

Ultimately, Jones decided to stay in school and Mariota is still a surefire first-round pick, but performance and possible injuries are things that would have to be taken into consideration. Additionally, a player couldn't hire representation, otherwise he'd be ineligible for his final game. 

The reality is there's no easy solution if the NFL decides to expand its playoff field—other than moving it back a day (Tuesday) or to a federal holiday.

ESPN could risk losing rights to another network or have to re-write language in its contract with college football's postseason. College football would either have to compete directly with the NFL or give up its prime Monday spot and figure out how to make another date work. 

But since the NFL is the entity calling the shots, ESPN and college football will likely have to swallow some pride and make the arrangement work. Otherwise, it'll lose to the league in one form or another. 

Ben Kercheval is a lead writer for college football. All quotes cited unless obtained firsthand.