The College Football Playoff announced Thursday that it will expand to a 12-team event starting in 2024, ending an 18-month process riddled with delays and disagreements.
The announcement came a day after the Rose Bowl agreed The last hurdle CFP officials had to triple the size of the now four-team format was changing the contract for the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
“I never gave up,” said CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock.
First round of playoffs in 2024 Teams ranked 5-12 will be held at applicable campus locations Week ending Saturday, December 21st. Exact dates are yet to be determined.
The Quarter Finals and Semi Finals are played in rotating bowls with the current format of Rose, Sugar, Orange, Peach, Cotton and Fiesta hosting the Semi Finals.
“I want to reiterate that all the cups have gone up, all six,” Hancock said. “It’s no secret that we were trailing in the final minutes of the fourth quarter. And there was no extension. Had we not reached an agreement, I have no doubt that we would have continued the four-ream playoffs through the 2024 and 25 seasons. But let’s celebrate that we reached an agreement. We came here.
The 2024 season championship game will be played on January 20, 2025 in Atlanta. Next year’s title game will be played on January 19, 2026 at Miami Gardens in Florida. Both are delayed over a week from the title game’s current time.
The expansion is expected to generate approximately $450 million in additional gross revenue for participating conferences and schools. The 12-year College Football Playoff contract with ESPN runs through the 2025-26 season.
A plan to expand playoff competition was introduced in June 2021, but conference commissioners governing the CFP were unable to reach the necessary consensus to move the proposal forward. An extension to the 2024 season was declared dead in February.
University presidents and chancellors who oversee the CFP revived the process over the summer. They approved the original plan for deployment by 2026 and handed it back to the commissioners, advising them to try to expand by 2024 if possible.
In addition to negotiating the format, commissioners must decide when and where games will be played and whether bowl partners and championship host cities can accommodate schedule changes for 2024 and 2025.
The Rose Bowl issue was finally resolved, as organizers of the 120-year-old bowl game were hoping to get some assurances that they would retain their prized New Year’s time slot when new contracts come into effect in 2026.
CFP officials hesitated???????? Faced with the possibility of being portrayed as a hindrance and the prospect of being out of the extended playoffs for an extended period of time, the Rose Bowl agreed to go ahead in good faith.
“Our goal is to have the Rose Bowl game on January 1,” said Laura Farber, chair of the Rose Bowl Executive Committee. “But we will be flexible on the schedule as needed.”
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