The College Football Playoff’s Board of Managers unanimously voted Friday afternoon to expand the CFP to 12 teams in 2026, with a focus to implement the format, encouraging the sport’s commissioners to shoot for the 2024 season.
The expanded 12-team bracket will consist of the six highest-ranked conference champions as automatic qualifiers, along with six at-large teams, the board announced on Friday.
“This is an historic and exciting day for college football,” said Mark Keenum, the president of Mississippi State and chairman of the CFP board of managers, in a statement. “More teams, more participation and more excitement are good for our fans, alumni, and student-athletes. I’m grateful to my colleagues on the board for their thoughtful approach to this issue and for their resolve to get expansion across the goal line and for the extensive work of the Management Committee that made this decision possible.”
The rankings of the program will remain in the hands of the CFP selection committee, which will stay mostly intact.
The four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded one through four, with each earning a first-round bye. Teams at the five through 12 positions will battle it out against each other in the opening round played at campus sites, either the second or third weekend of December. The quarterfinals and semifinals will be played in bowl games on a round-robin style basis, and the championship title game will take place at a neutral location, as it is under the current four-team format.
The dozen-team model was originally put together by SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, Swarbrick, Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson and former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby. It was discussed publicly back in June 2021, but got stymied by conference politics. In February, the CFP noted it would not be expanding in the current deal, which runs out after the 2025 campaign.
The major snag has been particular objections from the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12. But after the major realignment this summer, with USC and UCLA committing to join the Big Ten and that conference signing a monumental television contract, the sticking point from those leagues began to subside into the background.
Two weeks ago, the CFP board held an impromptu call, discussing expansion and the chance of a 12-team playoff starting during the structure of the current contract. That came to fruition Friday, a historic day in the sport, on the brink of the formal start of the college football season Saturday.
“The Pac-12 is strongly in favor of CFP expansion and welcomes the decision of the CFP Board,” the Pac-12 said in a statement Friday. “CFP expansion will provide increased access and excitement and is the right thing for our student-athletes and fans. We look forward to working with our fellow conferences to finalize the important elements of an expanded CFP in order to launch as soon practicable.”
It will perhaps take weeks or months to work out the possibilities of playing a 12-team playoff in 2024 or 2025. While CFP officials have mapped out the challenges to such an abrupt move, with venues, hotels and television agreements in place, money can be a powerful influence for change.
A 12-team playoff has been valued at $1.2 billion annually, industry sources told CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd, up from the current $600 million the CFP is earning from ESPN. By not enacting expansion prior to the 2026 season, the CFP would be leaving significant money on the table. ESPN would hold rights to any additional CFP games through the final two years of its 12-year deal.
It is now up to the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, and those who make up the CFP Management Committee to oversee implementation.
