College Football Playoff Expanding to 24

Graphic credit to the College Football Playoff.

The College Football Playoff (CFP), which took the place of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) National Championship more than a decade ago, expanded what the BCS had with two teams to a four-team bracket in the 2014-15 season.

A decade later, the CFP expanded from four teams to 12 teams, beginning with the 2024-25 season.

Today, the CFP has chosen to expand once more, doubling the field to 24 teams starting in 2027-28.

The field of teams in the 12-team CFP is currently comprised of five automatic bids coming from the four Autonomy Group, also known as Autonomy-4 (A4), Conference champions, which are, in alphabetical order, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Big 12 Conference, Big Ten Conference, and Southeastern Conference (SEC) and one non-Autonomy Group Conference, also known as Group of 6 (G6), champion, which include the American Conference, Conference USA (CUSA), Mid-American Conference (MAC), Mountain West Conference (MWC), PAC-12 Conference, and the Sun Belt Conference, along with seven at-large bids coming from the seven highest-ranked teams that are not Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Conference champions.

This 24-team CFP will keep the five automatic bid format that features the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, and SEC Conference champions as well as one champion from the remaining six FBS Conferences, or G6, and elevate the at-large bids from seven to 19 spots. Those 19 at-large bids will be given to the highest-ranked teams, in order, in the final rankings by the CFP Selection Committee.

We will now have 16 CFP games played on college campuses in the 24-team format, adding 12 more games on college campuses than what we currently have in the 12-team format, which is four games played in the first round of the CFP.

Also, the CFP will respect the Army - Navy Game, scheduling no games on the same date as this national spotlight contest that honors our United States Military.

The CFP Quarterfinals and Semifinals will remain the same, meaning that the six bowl games that have been partnered with the CFP will continue that partnership and rotate between having quarterfinal and semifinal match-ups in the Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl, and Sugar Bowl.

As part of this expansion to a 24-team format, the CFP is requiring the A4 Conferences to play at least 10 qualifying regular-season games, which means those 10 games must include games that are either played against teams within their A4 Conference or against other A4 Conferences and Notre Dame.

The non-Autonomy Group conferences, known as the Group of 6 Conferences (G6), must play at least 10 qualifying regular-season games that consist of gams within their own conference and non-conference games against a G6 or A4 opponent, Notre Dame, or independent institutions in the FBS other than Notre Dame, which right now is only UConn.

With this qualifying games being made clear by the CFP, the CFP Selection Committee, as a result, will not give any weight to a win by an FBS team over more than one Football Championship Series (FCS) team per season.

The CFP Management Committee does reserve the right to grant a waiver from the above-mentioned qualifying requirements in extraordinary circumstances in a given year of play.

As far as affecting the regular season, there will now be two open weeks in each college football regular season.

This new format will also stay true to when we typically see the end of the regular season, which is in late November, with the 2027 regular season, for example, concluding on Saturday, November 27, 2027, ahead of the first season with the new CFP 24-team format.

When it comes to if the A4 or G6 Conferences will continue to play conference championship games, the CFP has left that decision up to each conference individually. If any or all of these FBS Conferences get rid of their conference championship game, a conference champion would have to be declared based on the results of regular-season competition from within each conference that chooses not to play a conference game.

The first round of the 24-team CFP will occur in the first full week of December, giving participating teams a week in between the end of their regular season and their first-round match-up. If you are a top-eight seed in the 24-team CFP, you will have two open weeks instead of one before you play your first CFP game of that specific postseason. Those top-eight seeds will each host a second-round CFP game on their respective campuses.

Seeds 9-16 will host a first-round CFP game on their respective campuses with seeds 17-24 playing on the road in the first round of the CFP.

These first- and second-round CFP games in the new 24-team format will be played on either a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday.

Las Vegas, Nevada, the host city for the 2026-27 CFP National Championship, will be the final CFP National Championship coming from the 12-team format; this game will be played on Monday, January 25, 2027.

The first champion to be crowned from the new 24-team format will come in the CFP National Championship played in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 24, 2028, followed by the second CFP National Championship coming from the 24-team format happening in Tampa, Florida, on Monday, January 22, 2029.

Finally, when it comes to media rights of the CFP, those will remain with The Walt Disney Company, which owns both ESPN and ABC, with every one of the 23 CFP games being televised on ESPN and/or ABC. ESPN does also have the right to sublicense select games, with the new sublicensing right being in addition to ESPN's existing sublicense with TNT sports, which came back in May of 2024.

The new CFP 24-team format will run through the current agreement which lasts through the 2031-32 college football season.

Dan Tortora Broadcast Media, LLC, thanks the College Football Playoff (CFP) for providing this information that aided in the creation of this article.