Las Colinas, Texas – Rose Bowl’s match will start an hour earlier than its traditional window and will start at 4 p.m., as part of a New Year’s tripleheadeur in college -end quarters of ESPN, the CFP and ESPN announced on Tuesday.
The rest of the New Year’s quarter -final on ESPN includes the One Orange Bowl capital (Noon and) and the Sugar Bowl Allstate (8 p.m.), which will also start earlier than usual.
“The Pasadena Roses Tournament is convinced that the passing of one hour at the traditional launching time of the Pink Bowl game presented by Prudential will help improve the overall calendar of all eliminatory matches on January 1,” said David Eads, director general of the Tournament of Roses. “A match in the middle of the afternoon has always been important for the tradition of the grandfather of all, but this little synchronization adjustment will not have an impact on the gaming experience of Rose Bowl for our participants.
“In the past five years, the Rose Bowl match has taken place for a long time several times, which has led to a delayed start to the next Bowl match,” said EADS, “and, finally, it was important for us to be good partners with ESPN and the playoffs of university football and to remain flexible for the improvement of university football and its series.”
The Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, a quarter-final of the CFP this year, will be played at 7:30 pm He (ESPN) on the evening of the New Year. The VRBO Fiesta Bowl, a CFP semi-final, will take place at 7:30 pm He (ESPN) on Thursday, January 8 and the Chick-Fil-A fishing bowl will welcome the other CFP semi-final at 7:30 pm
ESPN is in the second year of its current enlarged package, which also includes the four games of the first round of the CFP and a sub-book of two games at TNT Sports / WBD. The network, which has been the only holder of the rights to the playoffs since its creation in 2015, will present each of the four quarter-finals of the playoffs, the two semi-finals of the playoffs and the national CFP 2026 championship at 7:30 p.m. (ESPN) on January 19, at the Hard Rock stadium in Miami.
The CFP national championship will return to Miami for the first time since 2021, marking the second consecutive season that the match will return to a city for the second time. Atlanta hosted title matches in 2018 and 2025.
The quarter-finals of last season had high multi-year viewers with the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl (17.3 million viewers) becoming the most watched Bowl match before 1 p.m. The semi-finals of the CFP produced the most watched Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic (20.6 million viewers) and the second orange bowl most watched by Capital Orange in almost 20 years (17.8 million viewers).
The National CFP 2025 championship between Ohio State and Notre Dame had 22.1 million viewers, the most watched NFL sporting event in the past year. The force test culminated with 26.1 million viewers.
Other planning details, including the first round dates of the playoffs, hours and networks, as well as complete Megacast information, will be announced later this year.
