A 24-team College Football Playoff is on the horizon, bringing massive shifts to the sport as soon as next year.
After expanding to 12 teams in 2024, that number is set to double in 2027, pending official approval. The proposed agreement would come with a $325 million annual broadcasting deal with ESPN to be the sole broadcaster of the tournament.
Alongside this expansion, conference tournaments will also become a thing of the past, with regular season champions receiving automatic bids instead. This comes just a year after 7-5 Duke won the ACC championship, allowing two Group of Six programs to reach the playoffs in 2025. Under the new model, the regular season champion from the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC, as well as the highest-ranked Group of Six team, will earn an automatic bid. The remaining 19 spots will go to at-large teams.
The new system would feature a first-round bye for the top eight teams, and on-campus matchups hosted by the higher seed. The New Years Six bowls will be played in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds, similar to the current format.
The Big Ten was the biggest proponent of expansion, and the SEC eventually joined the initiative, both conferences looking to send more of its programs to the playoffs. If the season ended today, the 24-team playoff field would include nine SEC and five Big Ten programs, more than half of the field.
The primary concern surrounding the expanded playoff is that it devalues regular season games. In a sport that previously stressed that every week matters, teams can now take multiple losses and still comfortably make the cut.
Rivalry week currently takes place right at the end of the regular season, but a bigger playoff could also dilute the heated environments that separate college football from any other sport. Many critics argue that instead of these matchups feeling like a fight for survival, they will become low-stakes meetings to decide seeding.
The SEC demanded that all power conference teams schedule at least ten games against high level opponents, meaning other Power Four schools or Notre Dame. This stipulation aims to prevent teams from scheduling easy opponents to boost their chances of making the playoffs, supposedly leveling the playing field.
If this were to go into effect, it could inadvertently further widen the gap between the Group of Six and Power Four. Many top programs are already reluctant to schedule Group of Six contenders, considering they see it as an unnecessary risk. If Power Four programs are limited to just two non-Power Four games, we will likely see more buy games against FCS or bottom-barrel FBS teams, denying the best of the smaller conferences a chance to boost their resume. Despite the playoff field being wider, this change could make it even more difficult for these schools to compete for an at-large.
Another effect the new playoff could have is further destruction of bowl season. With nearly every ranked team heading to the playoffs, every other bowl game will be further cemented as a meaningless exhibition. A few bowls have already begun to fold due to the 12-team playoff, so an even larger field could turn into a massive crisis for the minor bowls.
Notre Dame opting out of the Pop-Tarts Bowl last season may have been the tipping point. It was already routine for star players to opt out of non-playoff bowl games since they were seen as unnecessary injury risks. With entire teams choosing not to play these games, something needs to change to make the model sustainable again.
There have been considerations of moving these bowls to the following regular season, eliminating the December bowl window entirely. This would allow the games to avoid being completely pointless but also destroy the concept of a bowl as a postseason reward for successful seasons. Instead, it would become just a corporate-sponsored neutral site matchup.
At its core, the push for playoff expansion is about the money involved. With ESPN willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars, and individual conferences chasing larger payouts, it’s no surprise that these proposals have come to fruition so soon.
A 24-team College Football Playoff feels increasingly inevitable, so fans of the sport will be forced to adapt. However, this deal may exacerbate the existing issues within college athletics, benefitting the elite programs while slowly eroding the unique soul and history of college football.