The College Football Playoff (CFP) will officially expand the postseason championship format from the current 12-team format to a new 24-team pool beginning in 2027 after the NCAA and ESPN agreed to a five-year, $1.7 billion deal, which will also put an end to the conference championship games for the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, and SEC.
The current format, which was introduced in 2024, included the five highest-ranking conference champions from the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, and the highest-ranking non-power-four school (which in seasons past have been the likes of Boise State from the Mountain West in 2024, Tulane from the American Athletic Conference, and James Madison from the Sun Belt both in 2025). This format incentivized teams in major conferences to win a conference championship and secure a spot in the CFP, which those conferences have historically dominated.
According to an ESPN release, this new playoff system also shifts the season schedule a bit: what football viewers have come to know as “Week 0” will not be the first week of college football, and the regular season will conclude Thanksgiving weekend.
The new 24-team format will include 19 at-large teams, the “champions” of each major conference as determined by each league, and the highest-ranking non-power-conference team. The CFP selection committee will continue to rank the top 25 teams, but may consider expanding the weekly ranking to 30 to give a glimpse of which teams are in the hunt for the playoff.
“Opening the Playoff to more programs, more student-athletes and more fan bases across the country is great for college football,” said Mark Keenum, the chair of the CFP board of managers in the release from ESPN. “We look forward to seeing this expanded format come to life next season.”
According to ESPN, the average additional payment for the expanded playoff is about $345 million annually for the next five years, in addition to the average $1.3 billion ESPN already pays during that time.
Of that $345 million, ESPN will pay only $205 million, as the network will get $140 million back annually from slashing the ACC, Big 12, and SEC championship games. Fox will also get back $50 million for canceling the Big Ten championship.
Now, on the swimming side, there is no question that the NCAA places major emphasis on conference championship meets across the country. Swimming doesn’t come close to the revenue from ticket sales or TV broadcasts, which leads football and basketball to subsidize Olympic sport programs.
Swimming doesn’t bring in nearly as much ticket or TV money as football, so it depends on football and basketball revenue to cover its costs. Since the House settlement, schools pay athletes directly, and nearly all of that money goes to football and basketball players. That leaves less for everything else, and swimming programs have been among those cut. The playoff deal doesn’t shrink football’s revenue. If anything, it grows it. But swimming has no say in how that money is divided between conferences, schools and sports, and that decision will determine whether the pool stays funded.
“ESPN and the College Football Playoff have worked collaboratively for more than a decade to make the CFP one of the marquee events in all of sports, and we remain firmly committed to elevating it in its new, expanded 24-team format,” said Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN’s chairman, in a press release from the CFP. “We value the trust that the CFP has placed in us as its exclusive media partner, and our continued presentation of this premier championship further solidifies ESPN as the home of college football and the destination for college sports for years to come.”
