The 24-team College Football Playoff is official, with ESPN paying about $345 million more a year

The College Football Playoff will grow to 24 teams starting with the 2027 season, and ESPN will pay an average of about $345 million more per year to carry it. The CFP announced the expansion and an exclusive media deal with ESPN on Monday. ESPN's Heather Dinich and Pete Thamel reported that the five-year agreement is worth nearly $1.7 billion.

That money sits on top of the roughly $1.3 billion a year ESPN already pays under the six-year, $7.8 billion contract it signed in March 2024. The new deal runs through the 2031-32 season.

Who pays and who gives something up

The biggest change for fans is the end of the Power 4 conference championship games. ESPN reported that the network effectively pays about $205 million a year in new money, because it gets back about $140 million a year from the canceled SEC, Big 12 and ACC title games it held the rights to. Fox is expected to recover about $50 million a year for the Big Ten title game. ESPN also reported that the SEC's title game was valued at around $80 million, and the league agreed only after other conferences accepted a schedule standard that includes 10 Power 4 opponents.

Revenue distribution among the conferences stays the same, CFP executive director Rich Clark said. The management committee, made up of the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame's athletic director, voted unanimously.

How the bracket works

According to the CFP's release, the field will include the four Power 4 champions, the highest-ranked Group of 6 team and 19 at-large teams. ESPN reported that Notre Dame no longer has a guaranteed spot if it is not ranked high enough for an at-large bid. Seeds 1 through 8 get a first-round bye and a home game in the second round. Seeds 9 through 16 host first-round games, so 16 of the 23 playoff games will be played on campus, up from four. The quarterfinals and semifinals stay at the six New Year's Six bowls.

The regular season will run from the week before Labor Day through Thanksgiving weekend, with the first Saturday on Aug. 28, 2027. Army-Navy moves to the old conference championship weekend with a standalone window on Dec. 4, 2027, and the 2028 title game stays on Jan. 24 in New Orleans.

What ESPN gets

ESPN's release says it will hold all 23 playoff games, up from 11, and can sublicense some of them, as it already does with TNT Sports. At least three games from each of the first two rounds will air on ABC. The network said last season's 11-game playoff averaged 16.3 million viewers and the title game drew 30.1 million.

This season's playoff stays at 12 teams, with first-round games Dec. 18-19 and the title game Jan. 25 in Las Vegas. Beat Chuck covered the handshake agreement in October.