Start of expanded playoff still undetermined

Officials negotiating in effort to use 12-team format as early as 2024

ROSEMONT, Ill. — The administrators who have been given the task of expanding the College Football Playoff from four to 12 teams left their latest in-person meetings Wednesday with the biggest question unanswered: How soon?

“Making progress,” CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock said after the meetings near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. “We all have to remember the College Football Playoff will expand. And that will be a good thing for the game. And we’re just trying to see if we can do it earlier.

“I think a lot of us feel like earlier is icing on the cake. We’re going to have our cake in 2026. Can we ice it now and start earlier?”

The CFP management committee is scheduled to convene again on Oct. 20 in Dallas. The members expect to get some work done before then by video conference, but whether the logistical hurdles can be cleared to implement a new format as soon as the 2024 season is unclear.

“There are a million details, but really encouraged by our ability to work through them,” said Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, who is a member of the management committee along with the 10 FBS conference commissioners. “Lot of work to do, we’ll see. But thus far nothing that causes you to say, ‘This is impossible.’”

Hancock emphasized if expansion can’t be done for 2024, that wouldn’t rule out 2025.

Expanding the playoff early could be worth an additional $450 million in gross revenue from media rights for the schools that compete in major college football. The additional revenue will require a tweaked plan for distribution between conferences and for participating teams.

Most of the CFP revenue goes to the Power Five conferences and the bonuses for participation are relatively small: $6 million for placing a team in a semifinal game and $4 million for placing a team in a New Year’s Six bowl.

Since a plan to expand to 12 teams was unveiled in the spring of 2021, and then snarled throughout the rest of the year by mistrust and provincialism, the commissioners have blown through several soft deadlines, hoping more time would bring consensus.

That didn’t happen. Expansion of the playoff for the 2024 and ’25 seasons appeared off the table in February, but the university presidents and chancellors who oversee the CFP took matters into their own hands and revived the process.

By adopting the 12-team plan last month, the presidents directed the commissioners to try to implement a new format before the end of the CFP’s current contract with ESPN. That deal ends after the 2025 season.

Penn State

Beer will be available for sale to the general public at Penn State’s Beaver Stadium beginning Saturday when the Nittany Lions host Northwestern, the school announced Wednesday. Penn State will be the ninth Big Ten school to sell beer to the general public at football games. The ones that don’t are Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska, Northwestern and Wisconsin. Beer sales were approved by university trustees last week.

Elsewhere

An uncertain future awaits the longtime rivalry between BYU and Utah State. When the No. 19 Cougars host the Aggies in the Battle for the Old Wagon Wheel on Thursday night, it will mark the final scheduled game in the series. BYU opted out of four contracted games from 2023 to 2026 while clearing future schedules ahead of joining the Big 12 Conference next year. No plans are in place to continue the series in the immediate future.