The College Football Playoff is about to double. Here's what a 24-team bracket changes
ESPN reports the CFP is nearing a deal to grow from 12 teams to 24 starting in 2027. Power conference title games would go, ESPN would keep the rights, and a few big questions are still open.
College football is close to its biggest postseason change since the playoff began. The College Football Playoff is nearing a deal to expand from 12 teams to 24 starting with the 2027 season, ESPN's Pete Thamel reported Thursday. The agreement still needs final sign-offs, and the CFP had not announced anything as of Thursday afternoon.
It would be the second expansion in three seasons. The 12-team format only arrived in 2024.
What's on the table
The bracket's details are not final. Reporting so far points to a field with automatic spots for conference champions and the highest-ranked Group of Six team, with the rest of the field chosen at large, according to CBS Sports. The top seeds would skip the first round.
CFP executive director Rich Clark has said the ideal setup leaves a bye week between the regular season and the playoff, most likely the first Saturday of December, which is where conference championship games sit now. Second-round games would most likely be played on campus, and the regular season would run from Week 0 through Thanksgiving weekend, per ESPN's Heather Dinich.
Conference title games would go
That is the trade at the center of the deal: the four power conferences give up their championship games so the playoff can grow. Those games are worth about $200 million a year combined, and the SEC's alone about $100 million, according to CBS Sports. Group of Six leagues would not be required to drop theirs.
ESPN is expected to pay at least $300 million a year more than it does now, roughly what the FBS conference title games bring in today, Awful Announcing reported.
ESPN keeps the playoff
ESPN would hold exclusive rights to the bigger playoff through the 2031 season, when its current deal ends. It already pays about $1.3 billion a year on average. The network's exclusive negotiating window closed earlier this month, and the CFP said then that talks would continue, ESPN reported. TNT Sports' sublicensed package runs through 2028, and how the new deal treats it hasn't been reported.
How it got here
The Big Ten has pushed for 24 teams for more than a year. The SEC preferred 16 but warmed to a bigger field. Commissioner Greg Sankey's conditions included a schedule standard of 10 power-conference games, which Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said his league would adopt with SEC support. In May, the American Football Coaches Association voted to back a 24-team field and the end of conference title games.
What's still open
The CFP has until Dec. 1 to change the format for 2027, and Clark has called a 2027 start "not a foregone conclusion." If the logistics aren't ready in time, the bigger bracket would wait until 2028 at the earliest. Army–Navy, traditionally played the second Saturday of December, would likely have to move.
Not everyone is sold
Reaction from fans came fast and was largely unhappy, as The Spun noted. The arguments against are familiar ones: a 24-team field lowers the stakes of November, it ends conference championship weekend, and teams that go deep play one more game.
What it would change
A bracket this size changes what a loss costs. In the 12-team era, a two-loss power conference team often sweats Selection Day. At 24, three-loss teams with good wins would be in the conversation, and the real fight late in the season would shift from getting in to earning one of the byes and a home game.
Last season, run through a 24-team bracket
Put last season's final CFP rankings through the reported framework and the cutoff lands somewhere uncomfortable. The four power conference champions were Indiana (No. 1), Georgia (No. 3), Texas Tech (No. 4) and ACC champion Duke, who wasn't in the committee's top 25. The one Group of Six spot goes to American champion Tulane at No. 20. The 19 at-large spots then run from No. 2 Ohio State down to No. 23 Iowa, an 8-4 team.
That makes No. 24 James Madison, the 12-1 Sun Belt champion, the first team out. JMU made last season's 12-team field, because that format guarantees spots to the five highest-ranked conference champions. The 24-team version, as reported, guarantees one Group of Six team.
Two things could change that answer. With no title games, each league would crown its champion another way, and an ACC champion already inside the at-large range, like No. 19 Virginia, would have opened a spot for JMU. And a committee ranking a season without championship weekend would not have produced the same top 25.
Sports Index will update this story when the CFP makes it official.
Sources and more coverage
College Football Playoff: final 2025 rankings
ESPN's report, via Awful Announcing on Yahoo Sports
CBS Sports on the 2027 timeline and conference positions
ESPN on the rights negotiations
Eleven Warriors on Rich Clark's comments