College Football Playoff expansion: 24-team field is reportedly coming

The College Football Playoff is on the brink of expanding to 24 teams for next season whether fans are in favor or not.

Playoff executives are “nearing a deal” with ESPN to pay for the additional games, according to (who else?) ESPN.

The network reported that an agreement is “expected to come together in the near future, pending final approvals.”

Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti has been the chief proponent of doubling the playoff field as a means of 1) making more games meaningful during the regular season and 2) rewarding schools for spending tens of millions on their rosters. His plan gained support from the Big 12 and ACC last spring, but the SEC was a holdout until recently.

Numerous public polls in recent months indicate the vast majority of fans (in excess of 70 percent) are opposed to the 24-team field. The sport went 10 seasons with a four-team playoff and is just in the third season of a 12-team event.

The new format is expected to feature either: 23 at-large teams picked by the selection committee and one automatic spot for the Group of Six; or 19 at-large teams, the four power conference champions and the Group of Six representative, ESPN reported. (The latter format would protect the Big 12 and ACC in seasons when their champions are not highly ranked.)

To make room for the expanded field, conference championship games will be eliminated.

Based on ESPN’s report, the network has agreed to provide enough cash for the 12 additional playoff games to offset what the conferences will lose by axing their championships. The total amount of new revenue is expected to exceed $300 million annually. (The distribution model has not been made public.)

The CFP and ESPN are concluding a 30-day exclusive negotiating window. Many industry officials believed that playoff executives would take the new inventory to the open market — Fox was interested — but they apparently are sticking with ESPN as the sole rights-holder. The network would have the option to sublicense games to other outlets, as it does currently with TNT.

With a total of 23 playoff games over five rounds, instead of 11 games over four rounds, the sport’s new postseason calendar is expected to follow this outline:

— Rivalry games would be played on Thanksgiving weekend, as usual.

— The first weekend of December would be devoid of college football except for the Army-Navy game and, presumably, the Heisman Trophy ceremony.

— The opening round of the expanded playoff, with No. 9 vs. No. 24, No. 10 vs. No. 23, etc., would be played the second weekend of December on the home field of the higher seeds.

— The top eight teams would receive byes into the second round and join the fray on the third week of December, at home, against the opening-round winners.

Because of the volume of games and the NFL schedule, which includes Saturday games in December, numerous CFP matchups will be played on Thursdays and Fridays.

— The quarterfinals would be played at the major bowl sites, as usual, on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, with the semifinals one or two weeks later and the championship in the second half of January.

The contract for the expanded event would expire at the same time as ESPN’s existing deal for the 12-team field: in the spring of 2032.

What does this mean for bowl games? Details have not been finalized, but dramatic changes are expected.