College Football Playoff expands to 24 teams from 2027, ending Power Four title games

The College Football Playoff (CFP), the postseason tournament that decides the national champion in America's top tier of college football, will expand from 12 teams to 24 starting with the 2027-28 season. The CFP's management committee unanimously approved the change on Monday 9 November 2026 and announced a new agreement making ESPN the exclusive worldwide broadcaster of all 23 games in the new bracket through the 2031-32 season.

The CFP did not disclose financial terms. ESPN reporter Heather Dinich, citing sources, reported that the network will pay nearly $1.7 billion more over five years, which Reuters put at about $345 million a year on top of the existing six-year, $7.8 billion deal signed in March 2024. The biggest casualty is the conference championship game: the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC have confirmed that their December 2026 title games will be the last. This season's playoff still uses the 12-team format.

How will the 24-team playoff field be chosen?

According to the CFP's format fact sheet, the 24 places will go to:

• The four conference champions of the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC, as determined by those conferences.
• The highest-ranked team from the six other top-division conferences: the American, Conference USA, the MAC, the Mountain West, the Pac-12 and the Sun Belt (often called the Group of 6).
• The 19 highest-ranked remaining teams in the CFP selection committee's final ranking.

The Power Four leagues are the four wealthiest conferences in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level of college football. Because their championship games are going away, each league is expected to name its champion from its final standings, using its own tiebreakers where needed, sources told ESPN.

How will the bracket and home games work?

Seeds 1 to 8 receive a first-round bye and then host a second-round game on their own campus. Seeds 9 to 16 host first-round games against seeds 17 to 24. That means 16 of the 23 playoff games will be played on campus, up from four in the current format, the CFP says.

The quarter-finals and semi-finals will stay at the six CFP bowl partners: the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Peach, Rose and Sugar bowls. The national championship host cities are already set: Las Vegas on 25 January 2027 for the last 12-team final, then New Orleans on 24 January 2028 for the first 24-team final and Tampa Bay on 22 January 2029.

The fact sheet says first- and second-round games will be played from Thursday to Saturday of their weekends. ESPN will show at least three games from each of the first and second rounds on ABC, its broadcast network, and can sublicense some games to other outlets, in addition to its existing sublicensing deal with TNT Sports. Dinich reported that ESPN can sublicense six of the 12 new games.

What happens to conference championship games?

Formally, the CFP says decisions on conference title games rest with each conference. In practice, all four Power Four leagues confirmed on Monday that this year's games will be the final editions, according to Pro Football Network. The Big Ten said this December's game in Indianapolis will be its 16th and final championship game. The SEC, which staged college football's first conference championship game in 1992, said its game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta this December will be the 35th and last.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey called the game "a defining event in college football for more than three decades, producing unforgettable moments and crowning legendary champions." CBS Sports has reported that the game brought the SEC about $100 million a year, and that Sankey had initially favoured a 12- or 16-team playoff that would have kept it. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, whose conference led the push for 24 teams, had argued that dropping the title games was a worthwhile sacrifice.

The games were valuable television. NCAA.com notes that last season's Big Ten final between Indiana and Ohio State drew 18.33 million viewers on Fox, and the SEC title game between Georgia and Alabama drew 15.75 million on ABC. ESPN's Pete Thamel reported that ending the SEC, ACC and Big 12 games, which ESPN televises, returns about $140 million a year to the network, offsetting part of what it will pay for the bigger playoff. Fox, which shows the Big Ten game, is expected to recover around $50 million a year.

Dropping the title games also limits how much football a team can play. NCAA.com says a team reaching the national final could have played 18 games if conference championships had survived; without them, the maximum is 17.

How will the season calendar change?

From 2027-28, every regular season will include two open weeks. The final regular-season games of 2027 will be played on Saturday 27 November, Thanksgiving weekend, and The Washington Post reports the season will start a week earlier to make room. Every qualifying team will get a week off before the first round, which begins in the first full week of December. The top eight seeds will have two open weeks before their first game. Selection Day and other key dates have not yet been announced.