In a landscape-altering move, the College Football Playoff is officially expanding to a 24-team format for the 2027 season, sources told CBS Sports.
There is no official announcement -- yet -- regarding how the 24-team field will be shaped, but sources told CBS Sports the field will be built with a "19+4+1" model with 19 at-large bids, four reserved for Power Four champions and one for the highest-rated Group of Six champ. First- and second-round games would be played on campuses.
The move to 24 teams, long expected a formality in college football circles, will eliminate the popular and lucrative conference championship games. The SEC originated the conference championship game in 1992, and it had been an annual source of significant revenue for the conference in the neighborhood of $100 million. Last year's Alabama-Georgia SEC Championship averaged 16.9 million viewers, the seventh-most watched game of the season. Two spots ahead of that? The Big Ten's Indiana-Ohio State Big Ten Championship.
The CFP is currently in its third year of the 12-team playoff format. Next year will be the debut of a doubled field of 24 teams.
Playoff expansion has felt inevitable for some time now. The only question was how many teams would be included. The Big Ten and SEC had control over the future format but were not always on the same page about the number. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey publicly supported a 16-team playoff but eventually acquiesced to the Big Ten's preferred 24-team format. The ACC, Big !2 and independent power Notre Dame also supported a 24-team format.
While the 24-team playoff format has not been particularly popular with fans to this point, the hope around the idea is that it will get more fanbases invested in the playoff race and late season games. It is about more access to the playoff, rather than a signifiant financial boon for the conferences. CBS Sports' Brandon Marcello previously reported the CFP could offer an additional $320 million on top of the current contract, which averages $1.2 billion per year.
The CFP debuted in a four-team format at the end of the 2014 season with Ohio State winning the national championship. A decade later, in 2024, the playoff was expanded to 12 teams, and Ohio State was once again the first team to make it through the larger bracket.
How the Big Ten and SEC got to 24 teams
The move toward a 24-team College Football Playoff followed a year of debate and negotiation, with the sport's two most powerful conferences initially advocating for different approaches.
The Big Ten pushed for a 24-team field, while SEC commissioner Greg Sankey favored a 12- or 16-team structure that would preserve his conference's championship game. At one point the Big Ten pushed a model heavy on guaranteed automatic qualifiers divvied up mostly between the power conferences.
The breakthrough came in September, when both leagues agreed to evaluate the larger bracket. Sankey had outlined key prerequisites in a memo: offsetting lost SEC championship game revenue and requiring at least 10 regular-season games against power-conference opponents. The Big Ten and SEC hold ultimate authority over the playoff format. Their deadline to finalize a decision was Dec. 1.
Why replacing conference championship revenue was central
Expanding to 24 teams required making room on the calendar, putting conference championship games -- and the revenue they generate -- at the center of negotiations.
CFP executives expected to seek roughly $70 million to $80 million above the nearly $250 million combined value of those championship games, sources familiar with the process told CBS Sports. That put the potential additional annual rights fee at more than $320 million, on top of ESPN's existing agreement, which averages $1.3 billion annually. ESPN's position made the negotiations particularly consequential. The network already holds the rights to the ACC, Big 12 and SEC championship games. Industry sources said ESPN could redirect those rights fees toward an expanded playoff agreement. Disney Advertising also manages official corporate sponsorship packages for the ACC and SEC.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
