College Football Playoff will not expand until after the 2026 season
Any hope of an expanded College Football Playoff before the 2026 season is gone.
The playoff board of managers announced Friday that it would not expand beyond four teams until after 2026. The announcement comes after college athletics leaders could not come to any sort of an agreement on the way the playoff should expand in the coming seasons.
"The Board of Managers has accepted a recommendation from the Management Committee to continue the current four-team playoff for the next four years, as called for in the CFP's original 12-year plan. At the same time, the Board expects the Management Committee to continue its discussions of a new format that would go into effect for the 2026-27 season," CFP director Bill Hancock said in a statement.
"Even though the outcome did not lead to a recommendation for an early expansion before the end of the current 12-year contract, the discussions have been helpful and informative. I am sure they will serve as a useful guide for the Board of Managers and for the Management Committee as we determine what the Playoff will look like beginning in the 2026-2027 season."
The playoff teased the possibility of imminent expansion over the summer when it announced that it was exploring the ways that it could grow the playoff field. That exploration, however, ultimately went nowhere thanks to the inability of those in charge to find a solution they could support.
A 12-team tournament seemed like the most obvious way for the playoff to grow. But logistical issues ultimately stood in the way. Conferences couldn't figure out how the 12 teams would qualify. Would conference champions automatically get a bid? Would at least one non-Power Five team be in the playoff? The lack of progress on the expansion front led Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby to equate it to the movie "Groundhog Day" in January.
The location of the playoff was also a sticking point. The four-team playoff has rotated among bowl sites as a way to keep the longstanding bowl tradition alive — a tradition that stood in the way of a playoff at college football's top level for decades. Adding more bowl games as playoff sites would mean more travel for teams and fans, but the bowl organization lobbied the CFP to host early round games in an expanded playoff at neutral sites rather than the top seeds' home stadiums.
Playoff needs a jolt thanks to boring semifinals
The easiest way to juice the College Football Playoff is to expand it. While it wouldn't necessarily increase the pool of teams capable of winning the national championship, an expanded playoff would provide more TV inventory. And, likely, a few competitive games.
Just one of the last eight semifinal games has been decided by 10 or fewer points. And just three of 16 semifinal games since the playoff was introduced have been decided by a single possession. The easiest way to make the games ahead of the national title game more compelling is to add more games. And adding more games would result in more revenue for conferences and schools as networks like ESPN and Fox would be willing to pay to show those games.
Instead, we're stuck with the current format for four more seasons just like we were stuck with no universal way to determine a national champion before the BCS was finally introduced in the late 1990s.
