CFP will move to 12-team format

Expanded playoff to start in 2024 season

Over the past 25 years, college football's postseason format for crowning a national champion has grown from two teams to four and now, starting in 2024, to 12.

For a sport that started in 1869 and spent most the 20th century using bowls and polls to determine who was No. 1, evolution has hit warp speed, racing from Bowl Championship Series to College Football Playoff 2.0.

“The times change, things change,” CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock said. “Things have moved pretty quickly relative to the last 153 years.”

The CFP announced Thursday that it will expand to a 12-team event in two years, completing an 18-month process that was fraught with delays and disagreements. It is a momentous step, one with billions of dollars at stake in terms of TV and streaming revenue and one that changes the very fabric of the postseason.

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

“I never gave up,” Hancock said.

Expansion is expected to produce about $450 million in additional gross revenue for the conferences and schools that participate. The CFP's current 12-year contract with ESPN runs through the 2025-26 season. CFP officials have said they would like to explore having multiple broadcast partners in the next cycle.

The idea of major college football holding a playoff dates back decades and the Championship Subdivision has had one since 1978. The late Penn State coach