Big Ten pushes 24-team College Football Playoff as TV money looms

Money, not bracket design, is driving the next College Football Playoff fight. The Big Ten is pushing a 24-team field, but the central question is whether broadcasters would pay enough for more games featuring lesser-known programs to make the math work.

Commissioner Tony Petitti has argued that a larger playoff would make the regular season more meaningful and open a path for more schools. Fox has indicated it likes the 24-team idea, but media-rights experts say networks would likely pay less per game for those matchups than they do for the current premium playoff inventory. That leaves a basic tension at the center of the debate: more inventory for TV partners, but not necessarily more value.

The current money trail is already complicated. The College Football Playoff’s deal with ESPN is worth $7.8 billion over six seasons through the 2031-32 season. Under that arrangement, ESPN gets the first two added games if the playoff expands, while the rest would be available for negotiation. ESPN’s current expanded package also includes all four first-round games and a sublicense of two games to TNT Sports/WBD, showing how much of the playoff has already been carved up for television.

Conference politics are lining up around the revenue question. The Big Ten wants 24 teams, and the Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 have backed that model. The Southeastern Conference still prefers a 16-team format and wants to preserve its championship game structure. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has warned that a bigger playoff could create a “tipping point” that weakens the value of November games, especially as the league prepares to move to a nine-game conference schedule in 2026.

The College Football Playoff Management Committee voted on January 23, 2026, to keep the current 12-team format for the 2026-27 season, with first-round games on campus sites and the national championship set for Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on January 25, 2027. That decision did not end the larger argument. The playoff originally expanded from four teams after a vote on September 2, 2022, and then moved its start date up from 2026 to 2024. Since then, the postseason has become a larger business, with access, schedule timing and broadcast rights all tied to the same revenue pool.

The American Football Coaches Association has also called for broader expansion, the elimination of conference championship games and a season that ends by the second week of January. However the bracket changes, the next version of the playoff will be shaped as much by television and conference leverage as by competitive balance.