Why are there no New Year's Eve Bowl games this year?

It’s been a long week college football and there’s been a pretty steady stream of bowl games every single day. However, on New Year’s Eve, there are inexplicably no college football games of any kind. Not even an FCS contest as that division’s champion was determined on Saturday.

It’s almost as though the college football world is taking a bit of a breath before the playoffs begin on New Year’s Day. However, this isn’t the usual way things work. New Year’s Eve Bowl Games have long been part of this season. 

There’s a reason that the New Years’ Six bowl games are not all played on New Year’s Day. They are, in fact, usually spread out so that there are a couple of games each day around the first of the new year. 

So why is it that there are no New Year’s Eve Bowl Games in 2023? Why are there no games when there has been pretty regularly been four bowl games a day in the days leading up to this “rest day?” The biggest and best answer is that it’s simply a quirk of the calendar and the day of the week that New Year’s Day fell on in 2023.

Why are there no New Year’s Eve Bowl Games

In 2023, there won’t be any bowl games taking place on the last day of the year. This is for a simple reason that New Year’s Eve happened to fall on a Sunday this year. The NFL has officially laid claim to any and all games on Sundays and the NCAA has decided to abide by that claim.

Of course, it’s not just that college football decided to be nice and let the NFL have the day. With the National Football League entering its final two weeks of the season, there are no New Year’s Eve Bowl Games because the NCAA just doesn’t want to compete with the pros.