The College Football Playoff will double its field to 24 teams starting in the 2027 season under an amended five-year, $1.7 billion television contract with ESPN, organizers announced Monday.
The landmark agreement eliminates traditional conference title games across the Power Four conferences — the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big 12. In exchange, the postseason will expand to 23 total tournament games, featuring 16 on-campus matchups before transitioning to historic bowl sites for the quarterfinals and semifinals.
“Opening the playoff to more programs, more student-athletes and more fan bases across the country is great for college football,” Mississippi State University President Mark Keenum, chairman of the CFP board of managers, said in a statement. “We look forward to seeing this expanded format come to life next season.”
New bracket format and campus sites
Under the revised structure, the top eight seeds in the final CFP rankings will receive opening-round byes. Seeds nine through 16 will host first-round elimination games on their respective campuses against seeds 17 through 24. Winners will then travel to the top eight seeds for campus-hosted second-round contests.
The field will allocate automatic qualifying spots to the four Power Four champions and the top-ranked champion from the Group of Six conferences. The selection committee will then award the remaining 19 berths to at-large programs. Notre Dame will no longer receive a guaranteed postseason slot tied to a top-12 ranking, the Associated Press reported.
“We will make the 24-team Playoff spectacular for the fans, student-athletes, their institutions and all our stakeholders,” CFP executive director Rich Clark said in a statement, calling the expansion a commitment to a “world-class championship experience.”
The demise of conference title games
The transition marks the conclusion of a three-decade tradition for league title games, pioneered by the SEC in 1992. On Monday, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey confirmed that this season’s championship game in Atlanta will be the conference’s 35th and final edition.
Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti similarly acknowledged the conclusion of his league’s title showcase in Indianapolis. Without title matchups, conferences will determine their champions through regular-season records and tiebreaker formulas, Yahoo Sports reported.
The expanded CFP schedule will eliminate “Week Zero,” beginning the regular season the week before Labor Day and concluding on Thanksgiving weekend. The Army-Navy game will move to the first weekend of December, leaving the second weekend open for playoff kickoffs. The national championship game remains scheduled for Jan. 24, 2028, in New Orleans.
To qualify for consideration, Power Four institutions will be mandated to play a minimum of 10 games against fellow Power Four opponents, conference rivals or Notre Dame, the AP reported.
Debate over competitive balance
The financial expansion addresses revenue lost from scrapping conference finals, but the move has drawn pushback from prominent figures within the sport. Former Alabama coach Nick Saban recently criticized the shift during an appearance on the “New Heights” podcast.
“There’s not 24 teams in the country that can win the national championship,” Saban said, arguing that discarding meaningful conference title games in favor of matchups between lower-seeded teams detracted from the sport’s traditions.
While critics voice concerns over player workload and potential lopsided scores in early rounds, CFP leadership expects the additional access to energize late-season matchups across the country, as dozens of schools remain in contention for at-large bids into late November.
