Bleak update on College Football Playoff expansion talks
College Football Playoff expansion has been the talk of the offseason — or it was, until the working group announced it couldn't agree on a new format through 2025.
There has been plenty of back and forth during the negotiations, with the SEC pushing for a wider field, and other conferences stalling the process with more demands.
Now, after announcing his retirement, outgoing Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby offered a update on where things are in the process.
In short: nowhere.
The current College Football Playoff leadership group is "probably another year away from going back to the drawing board on playoff structure," Bowlsby told ESPN's Heather Dinich.
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Members of the College Football Playoff management committee — the group charged with creating the expanded field — will meet in April, but Bowlsby doesn't believe they will discuss expansion again in any real detail.
Bowlsby also said he thinks any expansion that does come "is going to be after I've retired."
That retirement will come later in the 2022 calendar year after Bowlsby announced he will step down as Big 12 commissioner. The decision came after he was unable to stop his conference's two most prominent members — Texas and Oklahoma — from leaving for the SEC.
College Football Playoff expansion: Yes, but when?
To hear conference commissioners and other prominent decision makers close to the process, college football's postseason will almost certainly expand. Just not anytime soon.
"Candidly, given everything that's been said publicly, [it] looks like we are stuck at four for a while," Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff said, adding that the system is "broken."
"Anytime you have three percent of your teams and student athletes competing for a championship, it's a broken system," said the leader of a conference that hasn't made the College Football Playoff since 2016.
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said his league is against expansion as is right now.
"The membership of the ACC is very much aligned in its position that now is not the right time to expand the College Football Playoff," he said, via ESPN. "We have significant concerns surrounding a proposed expansion model."
Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren has also publicly backed expansion.
"Expansion provides increased opportunities, exposure, and value," Warren said. "I trust that we will continue to collectively address the unresolved matters and move forward with expansion for the greater good of college football."
Expansion is off until 2025 (at least)
After months of debate, meetings, and behind the scenes negotiations, the College Football Playoff announced it will stay at four teams through the end of its current contract, after the 2025 season.
That decision cost the 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame around $450 million in potential revenue, according to most reporting.
The move to expand — which requires a unanimous vote — was put down by an 8-3 margin, with the Big Ten, Pac-12, and ACC voting against the expansion proposal.
Why did the vote fail? There are several reported reasons, including
- inability to accommodate the Pac-12 relationship with the Rose Bowl, which wants to maintain its traditional Jan. 1 date and media rights,
- protracted disagreements over distribution of future revenue
- disputes over whether Power 5 conference champions should get automatic bids to an expanded playoff — the Big Ten is in favor, while the others are not
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