A 24-team playoff beginning next season and through 2031 has been inked.

ESPN retains exclusive broadcast rights but will no doubt sublicense some of the early games.

The top 8 seeds will have a 1st-round bye. 1st and second-round games will be played on campus. Seeding will be adjusted to prevent regular-season rematches in the first round.

Quarter-final and semi-final games will continue to be played in the six bowls in use today. I imagine many of today's bowl games will disappear.

This will be the last season that conference championship games, if not played in the final week of the regular season, will be played. The weekend reserved for these games is now reserved for the Army-Navy game. Notre Dame will not have special access to the playoffs. One place is reserved for a G6 team if it is not in the top 24.

Hats off to Tony Petitti for weathering the slings and arrows of 24-team playoff naysayers, the entire world of CFB outside the Big Ten not so long ago, and delivering a format that makes sense for the Big Ten conference.

On3

College Football Playoff expands to 24 teams after new ES...

https://youtube.com/live/qw8hsflXBvo?feature=share After months of speculation and discussion, College Football Playoff expansion is officially happening.

College Football Playoff expands to 24 teams after new ESPN media rights deal

On3

College Football Playoff expands to 24 teams after new ES...

https://youtube.com/live/qw8hsflXBvo?feature=share After months of speculation and discussion, College Football Playoff expansion is officially happening.

More on the end of conference championship games.

BTW, if OBD and SC win out and UCLA's only loss is to SC, can the Oregon vs. UCLA championship game be relocated from Indianapolis to Vegas?

In Indy, there would be many fans disguised as empty seats.

https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/24-team-college-football-playoff-163735829.html

Booooo! on the 24-team playo$$. Hello to worthless regular seasons.

Agreed!!!

I politely disagree with you both; the regular season will have TONS more teams interested and shooting for a Playoff spot, and it will make a bunch of close games crucial for all parties involved. With the SEC bias, it helps to have more space in the Playoffs for more Big-10 teams to get into it.

Make the top eight and have a Playoff home game? Cool!

5 hours ago, Charles Fischer said:

I politely disagree with you both; the regular season will have TONS more teams interested and shooting for a Playoff spot, and it will make a bunch of close games crucial for all parties involved. With the SEC bias, it helps to have more space in the Playoffs for more Big-10 teams to get into it.

Make the top eight and have a Playoff home game? Cool!

I would be more inclined to appreciate the new format if the conferences weren't 16-18 teams deep. I'd give anything to see this format with 8 regional conferences 8-10 teams deep with automatic bids given to each champion with fixed seeding and fewer at-large teams.

Think back to the Big 10, Pac 10, SEC, SWC, ACC, Big East, Big 8, and WAC. It's a shame that we finally got here, but we're stuck with wildly unbalanced (Power 2), Frankenstein conferences.

Where I could get on board psychologically, is if I squint hard enough and just pretend that the first two rounds of the playoffs are just an extension of the regular season and a play-in tournament to the actual 8 team playoff - which may have been the perfect number the entire time.

I'm into it. The more years Oregon makes the playoffs, the more seasons won't be "lost".

The more chances to finally get a natty.

Double the spots and the placeholder for the group of whatever team doesn't seem so bad. They might even win a playoff game.

I believe this deal got made when the SEC made the commitment to play 9 conf games.

1 hour ago, mikethehiker said:

I would be more inclined to appreciate the new format if the conferences weren't 16-18 teams deep. I'd give anything to see this format with 8 regional conferences 8-10 teams deep with automatic bids given to each champion with fixed seeding and fewer at-large teams.

Think back to the Big 10, Pac 10, SEC, SWC, ACC, Big East, Big 8, and WAC. It's a shame that we finally got here, but we're stuck with wildly unbalanced (Power 2), Frankenstein conferences.

Where I could get on board psychologically, is if I squint hard enough and just pretend that the first two rounds of the playoffs are just an extension of the regular season and a play-in tournament to the actual 8 team playoff - which may have been the perfect number the entire time.

I agree with you. I believe the fans want more regional and traditional matchups. But I suspect the SEC is hiding in their region and would face some serious shock when they face teams they aren't used to. Ole Miss comes to mind. They can't hide behind the SEC shield because Louisville dropped 38 on them. Four points less than Georgia.

I prefer 12 teams. But I am not backing that until the SEC proves they are worthy of this bias they've been getting for two decades. Of course, ESPN does the nation no favors. I respect Georgia, Bama and Tennessee. Love Stein's Wildcats, but they are only slightly better than the other five ranked teams in the group, and they all are way overrated.

57 minutes ago, Mike West said:

But I suspect the SEC is hiding in their region and would face some serious shock when they face teams they aren't used to.

That has been one nice thing about the 12 team playoff. The SEC has been completely exposed going 3-6 against non-SEC opponents in two postseasons (Texas over Clemson, ASU in '24 and Ole Miss over Tulane in '25).

The Big Ten could use a B1Gger PO this season, no doubt.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/50422353/cfp-playoff-2026-bubble-watch-week-10

In today's CFB world of watered-down rosters, the 24-team PO provides some protection from injury to key players. Not too long ago, the starting QB at Louisville would have been Julian Sayin's backup.

4 minutes ago, mikethehiker said:

Booooo! on the 24-team playo$$. Hello to worthless regular seasons.

Agreed!

22 hours ago, Charles Fischer said:

I politely disagree with you both; the regular season will have TONS more teams interested and shooting for a Playoff spot, and it will make a bunch of close games crucial for all parties involved. With the SEC bias, it helps to have more space in the Playoffs for more Big-10 teams to get into it.

Make the top eight and have a Playoff home game? Cool!

I respectfully disagree Charles. Clearly there is a sweet spot between having an exciting playoff while maintaining an exciting regular season.

For instance, having a one game (BCS-type playoff) means every game is a must-win, but it doesn't provide nearly enough access so you are constantly leaving out potentially title winning teams.

Conversely, having a 138-team playoff would exciting and crazy, but it would mean the regular season was truly meaningless, because every team would automatically have a playoff berth.

I think 12 is the sweet spot. Basically every single team (with the exception of the G6 rep in some years) is capable of winning the title--we saw that last year with Miami getting so close. But the regular season is extremely meaningful--the Miami vs. ND game last year occurred early in the season, but it eliminated the Irish.

I think this adds 12 teams of which in many years only 1 or 2 at most may be title contenders. Last year, for instance, expanding to 24 would have included teams like Michigan, Houston, Iowa and Georgia Tech. I'm not saying those teams were awful....but I also don't see those teams competing with the teams that truly contended for the championship last season (in particular because all of those teams would have started on the road).

I know other feel differently and this is just where we think differently. But I do think this additional playoff expansion does indeed work to partially devalue the regular season.

I know that part of the counterargument is that expanding to 24 would mean a game like Ole Miss vs. Oklahoma (this Saturday) now has playoff implications--in the way that it doesn't have any such implications under the 12-team bracket. But, I'd argue that those are two teams that definitely won't be contending for a title this season--so that's not a game that'll capture my attention just because one of them could end up with the 17 seed next year.