--- title: How to Watch the College Football Playoff Games on New Year's Day for Free description: When are the college football playoffs? What channel are the college football playoffs on? Here's how to watch or stream the games free. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Lifestyle - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2017-12-31T21:00:53.000Z' modified: '2017-12-31T21:00:53.000Z' section: Lifestyle tags: - College football - ESPN - Football - Holidays - Sports - Sports - streaming tv - TV word_count: 416 canonical: https://money.com/how-to-watch-college-football-playoffs-new-years-day-2018/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![NCAA FOOTBALL: JAN 09 CFP National Championship - Clemson v Alabama](https://img.money.com/2017/12/171231-cfp-college-football-playoffs-clemson-alabama.jpg) *Last years's College Football Playoff National Championship game featured the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Clemson Tigers.* New Year's Day 2018 is a big day for college football fans. Two college football playoff games are scheduled for January 1, and the winners of each game will meet up in a national championship game on Monday, January 8. Here's how to watch the college football playoff games for the 2017-2018 season. ## **College Football Playoff #1: 5 P.M. ET January 1 on ESPN** **#3 Georgia vs. #2 Oklahoma, at the Rose Bowl** Both college football playoff games, as well as the national championship game, are being broadcast on [ESPN](http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/page/cfpbowls2017/2017-18-college-football-playoff-bowl-schedule). The first game, in which the Georgia Bulldogs face the Oklahoma Sooners, starts at 5 p.m. ET on January 1, 2018. If you have a cable or satellite TV package with the usual lineup of channels, simply tune in to ESPN to watch the college football playoffs. You may also be able to [stream ESPN live](http://www.espn.com/watch/) by logging in with a valid pay TV account number and password. If you don't have cable or another pay TV subscription, it's still possible to watch by streaming the college football playoffs with a service such as [DirecTV Now](https://www.directvnow.com/thegoodstuff2#the-full-lineup), [Hulu Live](https://www.hulu.com/live-tv), [Playstation Vue](https://www.playstation.com/en-us/network/vue/channels/), [Sling TV](https://www.sling.com/), or [YouTube TV](https://tv.youtube.com/welcome/). All of the services above allow you to live-stream pay TV channels such as ESPN on a variety of devices, and all come with free trial periods for new signups. So if you just want to watch the college football games on ESPN on New Year's Day for free, register with one of streaming services above. Remember, however, that you must cancel before the trial period ends if you don't want to be charged. The normal fees for these streaming TV services start at $20 and up per month, and Sling TV is the cheapest (though most limited) of the bunch. ## **College Football Playoff #2: 8:45 P.M. ET January 1 on ESPN** **#4 Alabama vs. #1 Clemson, at the Allstate Sugar Bowl** The second game of the college football playoffs, in which the Alabama Crimson Tide square off against the Clemson Tigers, starts at 8:45 ET on January 1, 2018. Like Georgia-Oklahoma, the Alabama-Clemson game is being broadcast on ESPN. Follow the same directions for how to watch on TV or stream both college football playoff games. For that matter, the guidelines above will also work for tuning in to the national championship game. The broadcast for that game, featuring the winner of Georgia-Oklahoma versus the winner of Alabama-Clemson, will start at 8 p.m. ET on January 8, 2018, also on ESPN. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/how-to-watch-college-football-playoffs-new-years-day-2018/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Lifestyle", "item": "https://money.com/lifestyle/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Sports", "item": "https://money.com/sports/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "How to Watch the College Football Playoff Games on New Year's Day for Free" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/how-to-watch-college-football-playoffs-new-years-day-2018/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/how-to-watch-college-football-playoffs-new-years-day-2018/", "name": "How to Watch the College Football Playoff Games on New Year's Day for Free", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2017-12-31T21:00:53.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/how-to-watch-college-football-playoffs-new-years-day-2018/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/how-to-watch-college-football-playoffs-new-years-day-2018/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2017-12-31T21:00:53.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "How to Watch the College Football Playoff Games on New Year's Day for Free", "articleSection": "Lifestyle", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2017/12/171231-cfp-college-football-playoffs-clemson-alabama.jpg", "width": 3600, "height": 2401, "caption": "171231-CFP-college-football-playoffs-clemson-alabama" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Brad Tuttle", "url": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/#author", "description": "Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals.\r\n\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/01/Brad-Tuttle.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "alumniOf": "Columbia University School of Journalism, MS", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle", "https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2017-12-31T21:00:53.000Z", "description": "When are the college football playoffs? 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