College Football Playoff leaders voted Tuesday to trigger a 30-day exclusive negotiating window with ESPN to discuss an expanded format and how much a 24-team field could be worth.
“This does not represent a decision or commitment to expand, but rather an opportunity to engage with ESPN and gather additional information to help determine a path forward,” the CFP said in a statement.
The CFP’s decision alone does not immediately open the negotiating window. ESPN must receive an official notification letter to start the 30-day window. ESPN declined to comment.
Opening the exclusive negotiating window with a rights holder is a significant step toward Playoff expansion and a strong signal that administrators who manage the postseason are serious about trying to implement a new format by next season. The CFP faces a separate Dec. 1 deadline to inform ESPN of format changes for 2027.
ESPN and the CFP are in the first year of a six-year contract worth a total of $7.8 billion to the conferences and schools that are part of the agreement. The deal includes rights to a Playoff of up to 14 teams. Anything beyond that creates new inventory and the potential for another rights-fee windfall for the conferences and schools.
Exactly how much the inventory might be worth is vital to know but difficult to gauge without starting formal conversations with ESPN, which essentially has the right of first refusal for any new playoff games.
“We don’t have any idea at this point of the clear media interest in an expanded Playoff,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said at his conference’s media days in July.
This is the first step toward figuring that out.
At the very least, the CFP would need to add about $250 million per year to cover the value of conference title games that would be replaced by an expanded first round of the Playoff.
ESPN owns the rights to three of the four power conference championship games: SEC, ACC and Big 12. Fox owns the rights to the Big Ten Championship Game.
If the CFP does decide to expand and cannot strike a deal with ESPN within 30 days, it could take the new postseason games to the open market, looking for other networks and streaming services to show interest. ESPN could still bid on the expanded CFP after the 30-day exclusive window.
When the Playoff expanded to 12 teams, the TV negotiations went past ESPN’s 30-day window, but the network still landed the rights to all of the games as the only major broadcaster or streamer who put forth a competitive bid.
This time around, Fox Sports has made it clear it wants to be involved; its CEO, Eric Shanks, has supported the 24-team idea multiple times over the past year. Fox Sports owns the Big Ten’s rights, licensing some to other networks, while ESPN owns the SEC’s and ACC’s rights and shares the Big 12 with Fox. Other networks or streamers are expected to inquire again on the CFP, too, as they did last time.
Outside media consultants believe there is likely to be enough interest and value in a 24-team CFP to make it worth doing financially, thanks to football’s overwhelming popularity, but how high that value can go remains to be seen. The NFL’s attempts to renegotiate its media deals early may become the biggest factor in what kind of money would be available for the CFP.
The CFP management committee, comprising 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director, has been discussing expansion options for several months, with the focus almost solely on doubling the size of the Playoff field from 12 to 24 teams.
The 24-team format has been pushed by the Big Ten since last year, and this season just about everybody else involved jumped on board except for the SEC.
“If we find the value, I think it just changes the tone of the conversations,” Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said at his league’s media days in July.
The Big Ten and SEC hold the final say over the CFP format, and while both would like to add more teams to the bracket, they have not come to an agreement on how many. The SEC has supported a more modest expansion to 16 teams, but the Big Ten has drawn a hard line against that.
When they were unable to reach a consensus on expansion last year, the CFP remained a 12-team event this season, and it would continue that way if the Big Ten and SEC remain at odds.
Sankey has been more cautious than other conference leaders in throwing support behind the 24-team model, but he and his league seem to be coming around to the idea.
Sankey laid out his must-haves for a 24-team playoff in a memo to the other members of the management committee last week. Among them was an agreement among the Power 4 conferences to require teams to play at least 10 games against other P4 teams or Notre Dame to qualify for the Playoff. The Big Ten is the only P4 league that does not have this requirement.
Maybe most importantly, Sankey reiterated that for the SEC to give up its lucrative conference championship game in favor of a larger Playoff, the league would have to make that revenue back — about $100 million — from a new CFP deal. Now those conversations will get the data.
The new CFP schedule, the timing of the Army-Navy Game and other logistics still need to be fully hammered out for an expansion decision. Those discussions are concurrent and ongoing. But if the money is ultimately there, it may be enough to push a 24-team Playoff into reality.