The College Football Playoff and ESPN have signed a five-year deal that will expand the field to 24 teams in 2027 with ESPN as the event's continued broadcast partner, a seismic move that also eliminates the lucrative Power 4 conference championship games.
The contract is worth nearly $1.7 billion, sources told ESPN.
"ESPN and the College Football Playoff have worked collaboratively for more than a decade to make the CFP one of the marquee events in all of sports, and we remain firmly committed to elevating it in its new, expanded 24-team format," ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement. "We value the trust that the CFP has placed in us as its exclusive media partner, and our continued presentation of this premier championship further solidifies ESPN as the home of college football and the destination for college sports for years to come."
The college football regular season will begin on what has been dubbed "Week Zero," which is the week before Labor Day, and end on Thanksgiving weekend. The national championship game will keep its previously announced date of Jan. 24, 2028.
The 24-team field will include 19 at-large bids, the Power 4 conference champions as determined by each league, plus the highest-ranked Group of 6 team. There will no longer be a guarantee for Notre Dame if it's not ranked high enough to earn one of the at-large bids. The CFP selection committee will continue to rank its top 25 teams for inclusion, and could consider expanding its weekly ranking list to 30 teams to reveal which programs are on the bubble.
"Opening the playoff to more programs, more student-athletes and more fan bases across the country is great for college football," Mark Keenum, chair of the CFP board of managers, said in a statement. "We look forward to seeing this expanded format come to life next season."
The top eight teams will receive first-round byes, and the first two rounds of games will be held at the campus of the higher seed. The playoff will begin on the second weekend in December 2027 and will still end with the national championship game on Jan. 24, 2028, in New Orleans.
CFP executive director Rich Clark said the management committee, which is made up of the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, voted unanimously in favor of the 24-team field and revenue distribution, which will remain the same. Clark also said everyone involved in the decision-making process is aware "of the fan sentiment" regarding an expanded field.
"We're aware of the fan sentiment and that many fans aren't in favor of expansion, but that was certainly weighed into the decision and it was considered," he said. "But ultimately, we just need to make a spectacular playoff. The CFP has a responsibility to our fans. They're the lifeblood of college football, and we [owe] it to them to make this great, and that really is our intent. We appreciate our fans. We did take into account their sentiment, and that was rolled into this decision, but we decided to move forward with it."
The New Year's Six bowls (Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, Peach, Orange and Cotton) will still host the quarterfinals and semifinals, with the national championship game remaining in January. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, whose conference has been the driving force behind the 24-team model, has pushed back against the notion that it will devalue the regular season because the system includes "tiered incentives."
Teams seeded Nos. 1-8 earn a first-round bye followed by a home game, and the top two teams earn "the best path all the way through." (The No. 1 seed would face the winner of No. 16 vs. No. 17, and the No. 2 seed would face the winner of No. 15 vs. No. 18). Teams hovering around No. 17 and No. 18 are trying to move up so they can host a first-round home game (awarded to teams seeded Nos. 9-16), while teams at the bottom are constantly trying to stay in the field or protect their spot.
The Army-Navy game will now be played on what used to be conference championship game weekend, and it will have a standalone window on Dec. 4, while the playoff-bound teams have a weekend to rest. The Heisman Trophy ceremony is expected to be later that evening, according to sources.
The current Army-Navy policy will continue in the 24-team field, so if either one of those teams qualifies for the 24-team field and then loses in that annual rivalry game, it won't have any impact on the team's CFP standing.
According to sources, the Power 4 conferences are expected to determine their champions through regular-season standings and their established conference tiebreaking procedures.
As part of its expansion agreement, the CFP will now require some scheduling standards. Each Power 4 team will be expected to play at least 10 games consisting of league opponents and a nonconference game against another Power 4 team and/or Notre Dame. Each Group of 6 team will also be required to play 10 games that include their league opponents and a nonconference game against another Group of 6 team or Power 4 opponent, Notre Dame or another independent school.
Nick Dawson, senior vice president, college sports programming and acquisitions for ESPN, was asked about how the expanded field will impact the value and interest fans have in watching the regular-season games.
"In all honesty, it's impossible to know for sure," Dawson said. "Clearly, the measures that the CFP and the management committee have put in place to improve nonconference scheduling are an asset in that conversation, but I think time will tell, right? I think a lot of the responsibility here will ultimately fall back to the schools and coaches if they treat the regular season as 12 important games moving forward."
The historic change to the sport's postseason comes just two seasons after the field tripled from four to 12 teams. In March 2024, ESPN and the CFP agreed to a six-year, $7.8 billion contract that ensured the network would remain the sole media rights holder of the event through the 2031 season.
On Sept. 9, ESPN and the CFP entered a 30-day negotiation window to determine what the value of a 24-team field would be. The window closed Oct. 9. ESPN will remain the sole rights holder of the event, but it can sublicense six of the 12 new games to approved sublicensees for exclusive distribution.
Sources told ESPN's Pete Thamel that the average additional payment from ESPN for the expanded playoff is $345 million annually for the next five years. That is in addition to the average of $1.3 billion annually that ESPN is already paying over that time.
Of that new $345 million, ESPN will essentially be paying only $205 million, as the network is getting back $140 million annually from the cancellation of the SEC, Big 12 and ACC championship games, which the network owns the television rights to broadcast. Sources told Thamel that Fox is expected to get back about $50 million annually for the cancellation of the Big Ten title game, which Fox owns the rights to televise.
Dawson told reporters on a Monday teleconference that the network hasn't yet made any decisions on the fate of the bowl games it owns and operates.
"No decisions have been made at this time," Dawson said. "We were obviously waiting for this process to play itself out first, and then we'll quicky kind of turn our attention to assessing what the rest of the college football postseason can look like moving forward. We certainly do feel there remains a need for additional postseason opportunities for teams, and you know there are clearly still good TV windows to be had as well."
In the 24-team playoff, the CFP quarterfinals and semifinals will remain as previously announced:
CFP quarterfinals
Friday, Dec. 31, 2027, at the Allstate Sugar Bowl
Saturday, Jan. 1, 2028, at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and the Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential
CFP semifinals
Thursday, Jan. 13, 2028, at the Capital One Orange Bowl
Friday, Jan. 14, 2028, at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic
ESPN's Pete Thamel contributed to this report.