Official: 24-Team Playoff Confirmed, Power Four Conference Title Games End

The College Football Playoff made the 24-team playoff official Monday, and the bill came due in Atlanta, Indianapolis, Arlington, and Charlotte. The CFP and ESPN agreed to a five-year deal reportedly adding nearly $1.7 billion in rights payments starting with the 2027 season, and the Power Four conference championship games are gone to make room for it. The title games this December will be the last ones for at least five years. Starting in 2027, the first Saturday in December belongs to Army-Navy, which moves to Dec. 4 alongside Heisman Trophy weekend. The first round follows on Dec. 9-11, and the national championship lands in New Orleans on Jan. 24, 2028. “Opening the playoff to more programs, more student-athletes and more fan bases across the country is great for college football,” CFP board chair and Mississippi State president Mark Keenum said Monday. The 24-team playoff drew heavy fire when it surfaced in October, and the money behind it shows what the leagues gave up to get there.

The title games still drew a crowd

Last season’s four Power Four title games drew a combined 48.1 million viewers, and the biggest one set a record.

Indiana’s win over Ohio State in Indianapolis was Fox’s most-watched Big Ten title game on record, peaking at nearly 20 million viewers, and the Hoosiers went on to win the national championship. Georgia and Alabama drew 16.9 million viewers for the SEC title game, and the Big 12 had its biggest audience since 2022. The ACC game told a different story. Duke beat Virginia 27-20 in overtime for its first outright ACC title since 1962, then missed the 12-team field at 8-5 when the selection committee took Group of Five champions Tulane and James Madison instead. “We are aware of our setbacks that put us at the mercy of the committee,” Duke coach Manny Diaz said on the day the bracket came out.

What the 24-Team Playoff pays for

ESPN currently pays an average of $1.3 billion a year for the playoff and will add about $345 million a year for the bigger bracket. On top of that, ESPN gets back about $140 million a year for the SEC, ACC, and Big 12 title games it no longer has to air, which leaves a net cost of roughly $205 million. Fox, which owns the Big Ten title game, is expected to recoup about $50 million a year. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti had estimated that the Power Four would lose $200 million in annual revenue without those games. The new deal still comes out ahead for the schools, with Big Ten and SEC programs set to gain $2.5 million to $3 million each per year. ACC and Big 12 schools would gain $1 million to $1.5 million each. The other selling point is home games. The new bracket has 16 on-campus games, up from four in the 12-team format, which hands 12 more campuses a home playoff game every December. Petitti made that pitch last week on SiriusXM’s College Sports Radio. “You’re going to fight like crazy to be inside the top 24, and then you want to get a home game,” Petitti said.

Greg Sankey gave up the SEC’s signature game

The SEC created its title game in 1992 under former commissioner Roy Kramer, and Alabama beat Florida that year on the way to a national championship. The Dec. 5 game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium this year is the 35th edition, and Alabama has won 11 of them, more than any other program. Still, the game was never cheap to give up. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey wanted a 16-team model that kept it, and the SEC held that position until it could absorb losing a game sources valued at about $80 million. The SEC did get the scheduling rule it pushed for. Power Four programs are expected to play 10 qualifying regular-season games against conference opponents, other Power Four schools or Notre Dame for the 24-team playoff, and 57 of the 68 programs have a nonconference game of that kind set for 2027. “We have contracts, so pretty committed,” Sankey said on May 25 in Miramar Beach, Florida, when asked whether the SEC Championship Game would survive playoff expansion. The SEC had previously contracted to play that game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium through 2031.