Broadcast Rights, Expansion Game Schedule on Tap at CFP Meetings

There were other faces walking the halls of the Las Colinas Resort in suburban Dallas than that of College Football Playoff executives and their bowl partners.

ESPN executives were also here Tuesday for a presentation before the CFP commissioner group during the organization’s spring meetings. And while this is an annual occurrence, ESPN’s presence is a reminder of maybe the most significant unresolved piece to the new expanded CFP: television rights.

The CFP Management Committee, which includes the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, kicked off three days of meetings Tuesday with presentations from New Year’s Six Bowl executives and the CFP’s sole broadcasting partner, ESPN. Roughly 20 hours of meetings are expected through lunch Thursday as officials finalize details on the 2024 and ’25 12-team expanded playoffs and, potentially, look to a new contract for ’26 and beyond.

But much of the progress may not be dependent on commissioners at all, but on a decision from the Worldwide Leader in Sports, a network in the midst of what is expected to be significant layoffs to on- and off-air talent.

TV rights deals will be a topic of discussion this week at the CFP meetings.

Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports

ESPN owns the broadcasting rights for the final two years of the CFP contract in 2024 and ’25 and controls the timeline on a future media rights deal (you’ve got to get ’24–25 rights completed before moving to a new deal in ’26). ESPN seemingly has two choices: (1) televise all 11 CFP games in ’24–25 or (2) allow a second media outlet to bid on part of the package.

But there might be a third option, as well: for ESPN to leverage its ownership of 2024–25 into having a significant piece of the package for ’26 and beyond. Could that mean ending the current broadcasting contract after the ’23 playoff in an effort to strike a new long-term deal through an open-market bidding process? Possibly.

The ball, as they say, is in ESPN’s court.

“Given ESPN is the existing CFP media partner, it is likely that, at this point, they are the only entity that can negotiate for the added games in 2024 and 2025 as well as secure some sort of extension for additional years,” says Bob Thompson, the former president of Fox Sports.

The two additional years of expansion are valued at an extra $450 million, according to the contract. But an expanded playoff in an open market could fetch as much as three times the price of its overall current value. The idea that the CFP would not take its lucrative 11-game, 12-team playoff to a bidding market would be somewhat preposterous and generate pushback from many inside the CFP room. Several conference officials, most notably from the Pac-12 and Big Ten, have publicly expressed their desire for an expanded playoff to have multiple broadcasting partners, like the NFL has with its regular season and playoffs.

CFP executive director Bill Hancock acknowledged last fall the “need” to speak with multiple networks in the next broadcasting rights deal, but that doesn’t necessarily mean multiple networks will have a stake in a new deal.

“We all said for [2026], we would fully go to market with the media rights. What that conveyed is that everybody will have an opportunity to participate,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said last fall. “We were always going to market. There’s no guarantee we’d go with multiple media partners. That’s a possibility, but we have to see the actual proposals.”

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Lingering above all of this is the current fractured state of college athletics. The latest wave of conference realignment provided evidence of the ongoing battle between the two biggest sports networks for college football properties. After the SEC signed a long-term TV deal exclusively with ESPN, the Big Ten last year agreed to an ESPN-less deal with Fox as the main rightsholder.

Here are some other CFP issues that could be discussed this week in Irving, Texas.

Finalizing dates (and work with the NFL)

Beyond the television piece, commissioners are expected to work on officially producing game dates for the 2024 and ’25 playoffs.

Hancock and staff are expected to post a calendar on the meeting room wall detailing holidays, on-campus graduation ceremonies and the NFL’s own schedule, which will conflict with some of the tentative dates that commissioners established last fall.

• The first round is slated to be played the third week of December, with one game on that Friday night and three on Saturday. It is the same weekend when the NFL begins playing three regular-season games on Saturdays.

• The CFP quarterfinals are scheduled around New Year’s Day. They won’t be impacted by NFL games in 2024 and ’25. Three quarterfinal games are expected to be played on New Year’s Day and the other on either New Year’s Eve or the day after New Year’s Day, depending on how the calendar falls.

• The semifinals are scheduled for about a week later, depending on the year. In 2024, it would be the weekend of Jan. 10–12. It is also NFL wild-card weekend, when a slew of playoff games are scattered across Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The best options are likely to play the semifinals on Thursday and/or Friday nights. (The championship game is expected to be pushed a week or two from its current schedule and remain on a Monday.)

More talk on Week Zero

For months now, college leaders have discussed eventually turning Week Zero into Week 1 and sliding up the entire regular-season schedule—all in an effort to complete the expanded playoff earlier and avoid playing too deep into January.

However, such a dramatic shift might be impossible to achieve by 2026. The Week Zero move might be more of a longer-term play, but there’s no doubt many commissioners believe it is the right one.

In turning Week 0 into Week 1, rivalry weekend now moves off Thanksgiving weekend, and conference championship weekend would move from December to Thanksgiving weekend. It provides more flexibility to such a tight December window while assuring the sport doesn’t get too deep into January and infringe upon NFL property.

A different kind of bowl game

The New Year’s Six bowls hosting the quarterfinals and semifinals will not be providing their traditional bowl experience in an expanded playoff.

During the Bowl Season’s annual conference last week in Nashville, CFP officials made it quite clear to the bowls that these are playoff games and the time in which a team arrives at the bowl site is likely to be dramatically reduced from previous years. Teams will be expected to arrive about two to three days before kickoff as opposed to the five-plus-day experience in the past.

A similar timeline is expected for the four first-round home games, though those details are still being finalized. Commissioners are expected to begin hammering out details on game operations for the four first-round home games, such as ticket distribution, ticket pricing and management of the game.

Welcoming the new visitors

New Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti is making his first appearance in CFP meetings this week, but he’s not alone. Interim commissioner Anil Gollahalli is here as well. Petitti doesn’t officially start full time until May.

Another new but familiar face was in Las Colinas: Rosalyn Durant, who during a shuffle at Disney now finds herself back at ESPN. Durant, who had previously been overseeing Disney Springs, Water Parks and ESPN Wide World of Sports in Orlando, returned to ESPN in March as executive vice president of programming and acquisitions. She previously worked at ESPN as its head of college sports networks. She takes over for Burke Magnus, who now oversees all of ESPN content as part of a restructuring that took place upon Bob Iger’s return as Disney’s CEO. Magnus was here as well.

A third new person showed his face Tuesday: former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, now retired and living in the Dallas area. He popped into the CFP meetings Tuesday for old times’ sake.