College Football Playoff to expand to 24 teams next year; Power Four title games eliminated

College Football Playoff officials announced on Monday that the postseason will expand to 24 teams starting next year and that Power Four conference title games will be eliminated.

The change ends a three-decade era of conference title games, college leaders said, after ESPN agreed to rework its broadcast contract to add 11 new playoff games. Terms were not announced at the time of the announcement, though ESPN said the package is for five years and provides an additional $1.7bn on top of the $7.8bn contract that runs through the 2031 season.

Under the new format there will be five automatic qualifiers: the champions of the Power Four leagues and the highest-ranked team from the smaller Group of Six conferences. The remaining 19 spots will be selected by a panel, and Notre Dame will not receive any guarantees like the one it has this year if it is ranked in the top 12 for what will be the final year of the 12-team postseason.

The top eight seeds in the expanded bracket will receive first-round byes. The playoff will begin on the second weekend in December, with the first two rounds played on campus, and the traditional Army-Navy game will be scheduled for the first weekend in December, a slot that had previously been reserved for conference title games.

Both the SEC and the Big Ten, whose approval was needed to adopt the change, and their Power Four brethren — the Big 12 and the ACC — are banking that most of the additional spots will go to their members so that some second-tier teams have new motivation to keep spending in an era of NIL and $50m football rosters.

"Opening the playoff to more programs, more student-athletes and more fanbases across the country is great for college football," said Mississippi State president Mark Keenum, who is chair of the CFP board. "We look forward to seeing this expanded format come to life next season."

ESPN told reporters the revenue from the new games will presumably make up for the estimated $345m the Power Four conference title games were worth, and that it would not be on the hook for $140m of the extra money due to the cancellation of those title games, the network reported.