College Footabll Playoff expands to 12 teams in 2024

The College Football Playoff announced Thursday it will expand to a 12team event starting in 2024, completing an 18-month process that was fraught with delays and disagreements.

The announcement comes a day after the Rose Bowl agreed to amend its contract for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, which was the last hurdle CFP officials needed cleared to triple the size of what is now a four-team format.

“We appreciate the leaders of the six bowl games and the two future national championship game host cities for their cooperation,” CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock said in a statement. “Everyone realized that this change is in the best interest of college football and pulled together to make it happen.”

The first round of the new playoff in 2024 will take place the week ending Saturday, Dec. 21. Exact dates are still to be determined.

The championship game for the 2024 season will be played Jan. 20, 2025, in

Atlanta.

The championship game for the 2025 season will be played Jan. 19, 2026, in Miami Gardens, Florida. Both are more than a week later than the current title game timing.

Expansion is expected to produce about $450 million in additional gross revenue for the conferences and schools that participate.

The plan to expand the playoff was unveiled in June 2021, but the conference commissioners who manage the CFP could not come to the unanimous consensus needed to push the proposal forward.

Expansion for the 2024 season was pronounced dead back in February.

University presidents and chancellors who oversee the CFP stepped in and revived the process over the summer. They approved the original plan for use by 2026, and threw it back to the commissioners, directing them to try to expand by 2024, if possible.

The College Football Playoff ’s 12-year contract with ESPN runs through the 2025-26 season.