The College Football Board of Managers voted unanimously on Friday to approve a 12-team playoff to begin in 2026, with a push to try to get the new, expanded playoff up and running as early as 2024.
“This is an historic and exciting day for college football,” said Mark Keenum, the president of Mississippi State and the chairman of the CFP Board of Managers. “More teams, more participation and more excitement are good for our fans, alumni, and student-athletes. I’m grateful to my colleagues on the board for their thoughtful approach to this issue and for their resolve to get expansion across the goal line and for the extensive work of the Management Committee that made this decision possible.”
The format would give first-round byes to the top four rated conference champs, with teams seeded 5-12 to meet in first-round games on the campus of the higher seed.
From there, the four quarterfinal and two semifinal games and then the championship game would be played at neutral sites, an expensive proposition for fans, who would be asked to make multiple out-of-town trips, and probably a bit of a bummer for followers of the top four seeds, who wouldn’t get a home game out of the deal.
But of course, college football is a TV sport, and the gobs of money expected to come from a 12-team playoff will more than make up for any inconveniences that the playoff schools will be passing off to their fans.
The move is particularly important to The Other 3 – the ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 – who desperately need access to new streams of revenues with the new Power 2 – the Big-10 and SEC – set to make billions from their new TV deals.
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Chris Graham
