Five of the top seven teams in the AP Top 25 just went down last week, shaking up the college football world in a way we haven’t seen all season. But that chaos? That’s just a warm-up for what’s coming: the College Football Playoff is seemingly headed for a huge expansion, jumping from 12 spots all the way to 24 teams. This isn’t 100 percent done, but reports from the last couple weeks suggest this is wrapping up fast. We’re talking about a massive shift for college football.
December Is About To Look WILDLY Different
Think you know December college football? Think again. With a 24-team playoff on the horizon, the entire schedule is getting blown up. We’re looking at the elimination of most, if not all, conference championship games. That’s a huge deal. What does that open up? The first weekend of December is now going to be wide open for the Army-Navy game to play in its own standalone window, which is pretty cool.
Then, buckle up. The CFP first-round games? They’ll kick off starting the second week of December. That’s right where Army-Navy used to live. From there, the new second round, quarterfinals, semifinals, and the national title game will just keep rolling. The sport is about to get a whole lot more postseason action jammed into the last month of the year, making every week feel like a nail-biter.
ESPN’s Iron Grip On The Playoff Pie
The money side of this expansion is just as wild as the schedule. You see how the NFL boosts its media returns by rotating the Super Bowl to different networks? College football doesn’t do that. It’s got this piecemeal media rights situation where different conferences have different deals with different networks based on past performance.
Now, you’d think with all these new playoff games, the CFP would take them to market, open it up for bids, and rake in a ton more cash, right? That’s the industry thought, and it would definitely help justify this massive expansion. But here’s the twist: that’s probably not happening. ESPN has reportedly been angling to control the entire postseason, every single game. That said, it does open the door for sublicensing. ESPN might offload some of these new games to other networks, kind of like they already do with TNT Sports. Sources close to the CFP discussions say there are still a bunch of details to sort out around any sublicensing and where all that extra revenue will actually go.
So, get ready to rethink everything you know about the college football postseason. With expansion to 24 teams seemingly imminent, things are about to get absolutely bonkers.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Fox Sports.
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