College football’s postseason is about to get much bigger. Leaders of the College Football Playoff announced Monday that the field will grow from 12 teams to 24 beginning next season. The expansion also ends the conference championship game, a fixture of the sport’s calendar for roughly 30 years.
The decision followed months of negotiation. ESPN agreed to rework its existing media contract to cover the added games, clearing the last major obstacle. The network said the new arrangement runs five years and is worth an additional $1.7 billion. That money comes on top of the $7.8 billion deal already in place through the 2031 season. Neither side released further financial terms.
Ending the title games will cost the sport a lot of money. The four Power Four championship games were estimated to be worth about $345 million. ESPN reported that the cancellations relieve it of roughly $140 million in extra payments, and the revenue from the new playoff games is expected to cover much of the gap.
How The 24-Team Field Will Work
Five spots will go to automatic qualifiers: the champions of the four Power Four conferences (the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC) and the highest-ranked team from the Group of Six leagues. A selection committee will choose the other 19 teams.
The eight highest seeds will receive first-round byes. This will most likely include the top teams typically seen in the current College Football Playoff. The first two rounds will be played on campus, and the playoff will begin on the second weekend of December. The Army-Navy game, which has typically been played on the second weekend of December, will move to the first weekend, the slot conference title games used to occupy.
Notre Dame, which has long operated outside any conference, will lose the special treatment it received under the 12-team model. This season, the Fighting Irish are guaranteed a spot if they finish in the top 12. Under the new format, they will get no such promise and will have to earn a place like any other at-large team.
A Long Road To A Deal
Expansion talk had been building for weeks. The playoff said on Oct. 6 that it was in the “final stages” of a decision. A 30-day exclusive negotiating window with ESPN lapsed on Oct. 9 without an agreement, though talks continued. Six days later, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that a deal to expand to 24 teams in 2027 was close. Monday’s announcement made it official.
Approval from the SEC and Big Ten was essential, and both leagues stand to gain. Those two conferences, along with the Big 12 and ACC, are widely expected to claim the majority of the 19 at-large berths. With more spots available, programs that might previously have seen the playoff as out of reach have new reasons to keep investing heavily in their rosters, at a time when NIL deals and enormous football budgets have become standard.
Mark Keenum, the Mississippi State president who chairs the CFP board, framed the move as a win for the sport. He said that giving more programs, athletes and fan bases access to the playoff benefits college football, and that the board looks forward to seeing the new format in action next season.
End Of My College Football Playoff Rant: What Remains Unclear
Several questions about the College Football Playoff are still open. The announcement did not address how the committee will weigh at-large candidates or how seeding will work for the bottom of the bracket. Nor did it explain how conferences will decide their champions without a title game. Some of those leagues may need to adjust their tiebreaker rules.
The abbreviated Army-Navy timeline and the shift to a December start will also affect the academic calendar and the bowl schedule, which have already been reshaped by the move to 12 teams. Critics of expansion have argued that a larger field waters down the regular season and invites lopsided matchups in the early rounds. Supporters counter that a bigger bracket rewards more teams for strong seasons and keeps more fan bases engaged into December. The current 12-team format will be used one last time this season. The first 24-team playoff will follow in the 2027 season, and the new format is expected to feature in the 2028 national championship game.
