The College Football Playoff is expanding its field from four to 12 teams, and it is doing so in time for the 2026 regular season at the latest. The field will include the six highest-ranked conference champions and six at-large teams each year. This much is known.
But there remains quite a bit left to be sorted out, a task that will now be undertaken by the 10 FBS commissioners who, along with Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, make up the CFP Management Committee. The group will meet on Thursday in Dallas to figure out the details of the Playoff’s new era — and what needs to happen to determine if the CFP can expand a year or two early.
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“Obviously, it’s for 2026, but I’m hoping it’s earlier if they can work it out,” Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said Tuesday, echoing sentiments of many of his peers across the country. “The bracket is pretty much figured out, so the next key thing is the dates. How do we make sure we don’t have compression? We have to think about student-athlete welfare.
“And they’ve got to figure out the revenue-sharing model. Those are the things I would say are top of mind.”
Smith said that he’s “kind of old-school” and likes being home for Christmas, so he hopes that players will still be able to get some sort of mental and physical holiday break in December, but he said he’ll adjust to whatever is decided.
Those comments identify two of the major questions that remain unanswered, but they’re not the only topics that will need resolution. A primer on the issues to be worked through by the commissioners in the coming weeks and months:
How the revenue will be split
This is the biggie. Tripling the size of the CFP field more than triples the number of games available to broadcast. Multiple outlets, including The Athletic, have reported on projections indicating that the 12-team CFP could drive more than $2 billion in annual revenue from media rights payouts.
Some commissioners have been more vocal than others in wanting the CFP to sign deals with multiple media partners, like the NFL does, because it will increase investment and coverage from those partners year-round. Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren, who spent two decades working in the NFL, told The Athletic last month that he hoped the league’s new partners — the Big Ten just signed a seven-year deal with Fox, CBS and NBC — would bid on games in an expanded CFP. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told Paul Finebaum on Monday that, while the new 12-team proposal will absolutely go to the open market, it’s too soon to know specifically how many partners the CFP will have. (Which makes total sense, by the way. No one knows until there are proposals, bids and negotiations.)
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How will the revenue be split? Should leagues that send more teams to the CFP or see their teams advance further in the bracket earn more money, as is the case in the NCAA Tournament? What should be the split between the so-called Power 5 leagues and the Group of 5? What is independent Notre Dame’s slice worth? These are all questions that need answers.
Under the current contract, base payouts are not tied to participation; for example, the Pac-12 has received the same base cut as its Power 5 peers despite not sending a team to the CFP since the 2016 season. Each conference receives $6 million for each team that qualifies for a CFP semifinal game, and each conference receives $4 million for each team that plays in a non-Playoff New Year’s Six bowl. There is no additional revenue distributed for reaching the national championship game. The spring 2022 distributions for the 2021-22 season were as follows: $74 million to each of the Power 5 leagues, $95 million in aggregate to the Group of 5 leagues, $3.55 million for Notre Dame and $1.88 million to the other six FBS independents.
Data from both the CFP and BCS eras suggests that the SEC and Big Ten will dominate the 12-team Playoff field once it expands. Will those leagues want revenue tied to the number of teams that qualify and how far they advance? Will this become another way for those two leagues to separate from the pack, another example of the further stratification occurring at the uppermost levels of college sports?
Viability of expanding for 2024 or 2025
Mississippi State president Mark Keenum, the chair of the CFP Board of Managers, is the person who unveiled the 12-team CFP last week. He’s the one who announced it was approved unanimously by the board of university presidents and chancellors, the CFP’s highest governing body.
When pressed about the timing of the news and the sense of urgency it suggested, Keenum acknowledged that a vote from the board to authorize expansion now allows the commissioners enough time to figure out whether they can implement it earlier than 2026, if at all possible. If the board had dawdled like the commissioners did — the latter group met seven times in-person between June 2021 and January 2022 before tabling expansion — then the CFP would have run out of time to explore the feasibility of early implementation.
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In short, getting all ducks in a row in time for the 2024 or 2025 season is starting to look like a squeeze. But even if the window of opportunity is closing, it’s still open.
The dates of the 12-team Playoff’s additional games have not been locked in; the board announced that first-round games will be “played on either the second or third weekend in December in a way that best accommodates the format and the participating teams, with at least 12 days between the conference championship games and the first-round games.” The board deferred to the commissioners for the “final determination of the calendar.” And they’ll need those dates before they can look into the availability of venues, as well as hotel blocks and other logistical details. They will also need the dates nailed down as they prepare for situations in which on-campus sites can’t host, which would then require the use (and availability) of a nearby venue.
The vote to expand the CFP prior to the end of the current contract with ESPN needed to be unanimous in order to break existing contracts running through the 2025-26 season. The CFP has several contracts with ESPN, bowl games and venues that it will need to rework if it can.
2026 and beyond
Calendar dates. Venue availability. Bowl relationships. All of those details need to be nailed down for the future, too. As will a new contract or contracts with media partners.
Sources familiar with the CFP governance structure have told The Athletic they believe it’s possible to work on a contract for 2026 and beyond while also looking into the logistics and potential contracts for early implementation on a parallel path. Now that the framework of a 12-team model has been agreed upon, they believe they can create what they need in order to take the model to the market while also going to ESPN to discuss expansion during the final years of ESPN’s exclusive window. That could result in two sets of agreements, essentially.
Those involved in the expansion process appear motivated to implement it as soon as possible. That’s the direction the commissioners have received from their presidents, and that’s why the presidents pushed through their vote on the eve of the 2022 season. They don’t want four more years of the status quo; they want increased access and engagement across the entire country. Smith described it as making the regular season “exciting for a lot more schools throughout the year.”
But stakeholders also want the revenue that comes along with an expanded field; there’s no way to avoid that. Experts have estimated that the CFP will make an additional half-billion dollars if it expands in time for the 2024 season. And even if it doesn’t, the influx of cash from 2026 and onward will be vitally important to the sustainability of athletic departments throughout the country that aren’t bringing in SEC- or Big Ten-level money.
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“Sure, there’s going to be more revenue — we all know that,” CFP executive director Bill Hancock said Friday. “There’s four new days, four new games. This will be an 11-game event versus a seven-game event. But the board’s thrust was on participation — the increased participation, more opportunities for student-athletes and more opportunities for people all around the country to grow this great game.
“(Revenue distribution) will be one of the items on our list of things to get going on as we start to implement the new format.”
(Photo: Stephen Lew / USA Today)