The College Football Playoff reached a handshake agreement with on Friday to carry a 24-team playoff beginning in the 2027 season, a move that would remake the sport’s postseason and double the field from 12 teams. The agreement still needs board approval across the parties involved, so the format is not final yet.
That is why Ncaa Football Tonight is focused on the playoff rather than a single game. The proposal would send the top eight teams into the bracket with a first-round bye, then a home game, while teams seeded Nos. 9-16 would host in the opening round. Under the current plan, the No. 1 seed would meet the winner of No. 16 vs. No. 17, and the No. 2 seed would face the winner of No. 15 vs. No. 18.
The money behind the shift is just as large as the bracket itself. is expected to pay an additional average of $345 million a year for the expanded playoff over the next five years, on top of the average $1.3 billion it is already paying annually under the same period. In March 2024, and the College Football Playoff agreed to a six-year, $7.8 billion contract through the 2031-32 season, and the new talks were aimed at valuing a larger field within that deal.
The proposed setup would send the quarterfinals and semifinals to the New Year's Six bowls, with the national championship game still expected to remain in January. It would also build the bracket around 19 at-large bids, the Power 4 conference champions as determined by each league, and the highest-ranked Group of 6 team. The College Football Playoff had already moved from four teams to 12, and this would push it to a format that is much harder to fit into the sport’s current calendar.
That is where the last obstacle sits. The framework discussed would also eliminate the lucrative Power 4 conference championship games and start the season a week earlier, but the handshake agreement does not make any of it official. Tony Petitti has argued the system includes tiered incentives, yet the boards still have to sign off before the 24-team playoff becomes the real plan. Until then, the sport has a shape in principle, not in ink.
