College Football Playoff nears deal to double field to 24 teams, eliminating conference title games

The College Football Playoff is '95 percent done' with a deal to double its field from 12 to 24 teams beginning in the 2027 season — a shift that would kill Power 4 conference championship games, bring first-round action to campus stadiums, and pump more than $300 million a year in additional rights fees into college football, according to two people familiar with the negotiations who spoke to The Athletic on condition of anonymity.

If completed, the agreement would make this season the last of the 12-team format, which itself only debuted in 2024 — replacing a four-team bracket that had run since 2014. The pace of change is jarring even by college football standards: three different playoff structures in three years.

The proposed bracket would be built on a '19+4+1' model: 19 at-large bids, four automatic spots for Power 4 conference champions, and one guaranteed berth for the highest-ranked Group of Six team, according to CBS Sports and Sporting News. Teams seeded 1 through 8 would sit out the opening round and then host a second-round game on their home field. Seeds 9 through 24 would play first-round games at the campus of the higher seed, with quarterfinals returning to traditional New Year's Six bowl sites and semifinals and the championship remaining at bowl and neutral sites.

The financial architecture of the deal centers on replacing the revenue that conference championship games currently generate. Those games are worth roughly $250 million combined, according to sources cited by CBS Sports. Rights to the ACC, Big 12, and SEC championship games are already held by ESPN, and the network could apply those fees toward the expanded playoff agreement. The CFP was seeking a figure roughly $70 million to $80 million beyond that $250 million baseline, meaning the potential additional annual rights fee could exceed $320 million on top of ESPN's existing deal, which averages $1.3 billion per year.

Constructive discussions with ESPN continued this week. We have enjoyed a strong partnership with ESPN since our inception and are appreciative of the productive dialogue we have had throughout the negotiating period and continuing over the last several days. We will provide additional updates on the matters of future format and media rights when appropriate.— CFP, statement

All of the additional games are expected to go to ESPN, which would remain the playoff's exclusive broadcaster for the remainder of its current six-year contract, running through the 2031-32 season, according to reporting cited by The Athletic. ESPN would receive a rebate for the three conference championship games it currently owns, worth roughly half the cost of the new games. Five of this year's 11 playoff games — among them the Orange Bowl semifinal — are being sublicensed by the network to TNT.

The CFP's exclusive 30-day negotiating window with ESPN expired October 9 without an agreement, sources told CBS Sports, but the CFP activated a clause giving ESPN five additional business days to review the numbers. That five-day window closes this Friday, making the deadline immediate.

It was Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and his staff who first put forward the 24-team concept, doing so late in the summer of 2025 after earlier expansion discussions had fallen apart. The case Petitti made centered on money and opportunity: roster spending had climbed into the tens of millions of dollars, yet too many programs were pouring in resources with little realistic chance of breaking into a 12-team field. A larger bracket, the reasoning went, would keep more fan bases engaged and give coaches and athletic directors something to sell as meaningful progress.

We're up against some older traditions, which are like college football is the last place where every team in the postseason has to be stone-lock legit chance to win the championship. That's not the way playoffs work in any other sport, including the NCAA (basketball tournament).— Tony Petitti, Big Ten Commissioner

The idea was initially met with skepticism, but ACC commissioner Jim Phillips and Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark moved into the 24-team camp, and by spring of this year both had publicly supported the plan. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey stood apart as the sole dissenter, preferring a 12- or 16-team structure that would protect his conference's championship game, and cautioning that a bigger bracket risked eroding the regular season's appeal.

In August, Sankey signaled the SEC was ready to move forward, and the CFP opened negotiations with ESPN within a week. Sankey sent a memo to the management committee laying out the SEC's conditions: offsetting the lost championship game revenue, and requiring Power 4 teams to play at least 10 games against other Power 4 competition to qualify for the playoff. Authority over the playoff format ultimately rests with the Big Ten and SEC, and they faced a December 1 deadline to lock in a decision.

Eliminating conference championship games clears the calendar for an expanded first round, but it is also the deal's most visible casualty. Those games have been a fixture of the college football December for decades and generate significant standalone revenue and attention.

They're gonna be gone. That's the reality of the situation.— John Talty, CBS Sports

Under the proposed schedule, the first weekend of December — traditionally conference championship weekend — would become an off week for CFP teams and a potential home for the Army-Navy game. First-round campus games would begin the second weekend of December, potentially as early as Thursday of that week. Second-round campus games would follow the next weekend. Bowl sites would host the quarterfinals in the days surrounding New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Dates already in place for the 2027 cycle include quarterfinals December 31, 2027 and January 1, 2028, semifinals January 13-14, and the championship game January 24, 2028, in New Orleans, according to Sporting News.

Revenue distribution could become its own flashpoint. CBS Sports reports that under the current arrangement, the Big Ten and SEC each take home about 29 percent of CFP revenue, while the ACC receives roughly 17 percent and the Big 12 approximately 15 percent, with the Group of Six and Notre Dame splitting what remains. How additional money from the expanded deal is divided among those parties has not been resolved publicly.

A meeting of the CFP management committee — which consists of 10 FBS conference commissioners and Notre Dame's athletic director — was on the calendar to take up the ESPN negotiations, The Athletic reported. Final approvals are still required before any deal is official.

The evolution of college football's postseason has accelerated sharply. The Bowl Championship Series, born in 1998, produced a No. 1 vs. No. 2 title game each season. Conceived in 2012 and first played in 2014, the four-team CFP gave way to a 12-team format that debuted in 2024. If the 24-team deal closes, the sport will have tripled its playoff field in the span of three seasons.

Why it matters — A 24-team playoff would be the most sweeping restructuring in college football history, eliminating conference championship games, redirecting hundreds of millions in TV money, and giving dozens more programs a realistic path to a national title — fundamentally changing what the regular season means.

Sources differ on Exact number of at-large bids in the 24-team field: 19 at-large bids (19+4+1 model) (cbssports.com) vs 23 at-large bids with one Group of Six spot, no automatic conference champion bids (cbssports.com (separate sourcing from CFP executive director Rich Clark))

Reported by yahoo.com, cbssports.com, sportingnews.com, sltrib.com