IRVING, Texas – College football’s conference championship Saturday could give way to a different route into the national title race, with more teams reaching the playoff and more postseason games played on campus. But the agreement that would reshape the 2027 season has not yet cleared its final approvals.
The College Football Playoff is nearing a deal with ESPN to expand from 12 teams to 24 beginning in 2027, according to reports published Thursday. Commissioners were presented with the network’s proposal that afternoon, but no vote was taken, Yahoo Sports reported, a distinction that leaves the sport between an approaching television agreement and an approved competition format.
Yahoo Sports’ Nick Bromberg reported that executives raised concerns about the process, the proposed deal and the possibility of proceeding without taking the rights to the open market. Those objections do not establish that expansion will fail. They do mean that a report of a deal being close should not be read as a completed vote.
The CFP’s own language was narrower than the headlines. It said, “Constructive discussions with ESPN continued this week,” in its October 15 statement, promising further updates on future format and media rights when appropriate. The statement announced neither a signed expansion agreement nor a new bracket for next season.
The immediate consequence for fans is straightforward: the current season remains a 12-team competition. The proposed change concerns the 2027 season, not an enlargement of the field during this autumn’s rankings race, which has already included Texas’ comeback win over Ohio State. The deadline to change next season’s format is December 1, according to Yahoo’s report.
At the center of the negotiations is a trade: conferences could surrender their championship games in exchange for a larger playoff that generates more television inventory and gives more programs a chance to remain relevant in December. ESPN’s existing CFP agreement runs through the 2031 season, and the network is negotiating to acquire the additional games for the same period.
That makes the conference title games more than a scheduling inconvenience. They are valuable events with established audiences and revenue attached, particularly in the Southeastern Conference. Replacing them requires a financial answer as well as space for an extra playoff round; announcing 12 more places in the bracket does not by itself settle either issue.
CBS Sports reported that replacing lost championship-game revenue was a sticking point for commissioners. Its reporting put the additional annual rights value being discussed above $300 million, but that is a reported negotiating figure, not a publicly announced final price. The same distinction applies to how any new money would be divided among conferences.
The Big Ten and SEC arrived at this point from different positions. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti pushed a 24-team field, initially with multiple guaranteed qualifiers from individual conferences, while SEC commissioner Greg Sankey favored a smaller structure that would preserve his league’s title game. The Big Ten’s push has unfolded alongside the conference’s broader competitive strength, reflected in its sweep of the preseason poll’s top five.
The larger conferences’ influence does not make the selection rules a settled detail. CBS reported that the emerging proposal would have 19 at-large places, four places for Power Four champions and one for the highest-rated Group of Six champion. Its account also described an earlier model with 23 at-large places and one Group of Six berth, illustrating why earlier proposals should not be confused with final rules.
For programs outside a conference title race, those differences matter. At-large selection would become a much larger part of the competition, but an independent such as Notre Dame would still need to understand the eligibility and ranking rules before treating expansion as a guaranteed opportunity. A bigger field shifts the cutoff; it does not remove one.
The calendar would change just as visibly. The format under discussion would put an expanded first round and a new second round on campuses, with the New Year’s Six bowls retaining quarterfinal and semifinal games. Reports also describe moving the regular-season start a week earlier and shifting Army-Navy into the early-December window now occupied by conference championship games; those remain proposed consequences, not a released schedule.
For supporters, two rounds of campus games would preserve more of the home-field atmosphere that distinguishes college football from a neutral-site tournament. For critics, admitting twice as many teams would soften the consequences of some regular-season defeats. Both arguments can be true at once: more programs could stay in contention while the strongest teams gain more room to survive a loss.
Scheduling strength is another unresolved part of that trade. CBS reported that Sankey sought a requirement for at least 10 regular-season games against power-conference opponents, while Yahoo noted that the four power leagues now play nine conference games. The discussion extends beyond the bracket into the kind of schedule a program must play to qualify, an issue with implications across the Big Ten’s expanding competitive landscape.
A television agreement would answer who pays for additional playoff games. It would not, without accompanying decisions, tell a coach how a conference champion will be chosen after title games disappear, a fan which December weekend to reserve, or an athletic director how much replacement revenue to budget. As of the CFP’s latest statement, those answers had not been publicly delivered.
