24-Team College Football Playoff: What Changes for Fans

Your team finishes 9-3, ranks 18th, and loses its rivalry game on Thanksgiving weekend. Under the old rules that season ends in a mid-tier bowl nobody remembers. Under the 24-team College Football Playoff, that same team plays a home playoff game in December.

That is the trade college football made on November 9. The CFP Management Committee voted unanimously to double the field starting next season, and the shift reaches far past the bracket. Conference title games are going away, a ninth-place finish becomes worth more than an eighth-place one is today, and the new TV money is much thinner than the headlines suggest.

Below: who gets in, why seed 8 versus seed 9 is the new line that matters, what the money looks like per school, and what changes for you as a fan.

How the 24-Team College Football Playoff Picks Its Field

The selection rule is short. According to the College Football Playoff's official announcement, the field has three parts:

• 4 automatic bids for the conference champions of the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC, with each conference deciding how it names its champion.
• 1 automatic bid for the highest-ranked team from the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12 or Sun Belt.
• 19 at-large spots for the highest-ranked remaining teams in the selection committee's final ranking.

Compare that with the current format. Today the bracket holds the same five automatic bids plus seven at-large teams. So the expansion adds no new guaranteed access for anyone. All 12 new spots are at-large, which means they go to whoever the committee ranks highest.

Under last season's final rankings, eleven of the 12 added spots would have gone to Power 4 teams and the other to Notre Dame, per a Forbes analysis published on Yahoo Sports. The Group of 6 still has one guaranteed seat and a theoretical shot at the rest.

The new scheduling rules

Expansion also comes with new rules for athletic directors who load up on easy wins. Each Power 4 school is expected to play at least 10 qualifying regular season games: conference games plus non-conference games against other Power 4 teams or Notre Dame. The committee will also give no weight to more than one win over an FCS opponent per season.

In plain terms, a second cupcake game now counts for nothing when seeds are decided. Expect more marquee September matchups.

Why Seed 8 Versus Seed 9 Is the New Bubble

In the 12-team bracket, the fight that mattered most was for the top four seeds and their byes. In the 24-team version that line moves to eighth place, and it carries more weight than it looks.

Here is how the bracket splits:

• Seeds 1 to 8 skip the first round and host a second-round game on campus.
• Seeds 9 to 16 host a first-round game against seeds 17 to 24 (9 plays 24, 10 plays 23, and so on down to 16 against 17).
• Quarterfinals and semifinals stay at the six bowl partners: Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Peach, Rose and Sugar.

A worked example: two teams one spot apart

Picture two teams after the final ranking. One lands at No. 8. The other lands at No. 9.

The No. 8 seed needs four wins to take the title: a home second-round game, a quarterfinal, a semifinal and the championship. The CFP says the top eight seeds will have two open weeks before their first game, so they arrive rested.

The No. 9 seed needs five wins. It hosts No. 24 in the first round, then, if it wins, it travels to No. 8's stadium the following week for the second round. That is one extra game against a playoff-caliber opponent, plus a road trip to the exact team it finished one spot behind.

The bracket needs 23 games: 8 in each of the first two rounds, then 4 quarterfinals, 2 semifinals and a final. Those first 16 are played on campus. A single ranking spot decides whether you play one of those campus games at home or on the road.

The Money: Bigger Field, Smaller Check Than It Sounds

ESPN keeps the playoff. It becomes the exclusive worldwide rightsholder for the expanded format through the end of the deal, and the CFP did not disclose terms. Forbes filled in the numbers from ESPN's own reporting.

• ESPN will pay an average of $345 million more per year for five years, about $1.7 billion in total.
• That sits on top of roughly $1.3 billion a year ESPN already pays under a six-year, $7.8 billion contract.
• The four Power 4 conferences each said this season's championship game will be its last, and those games were worth about $250 million combined.

Why the net gain is only about $2 million per school

Follow the math the way Forbes lays it out. ESPN holds the rights to the ACC, Big 12 and SEC title games, so dropping them gives it back about $140 million a year. Subtract that from $345 million and ESPN's real cost for the new games is about $205 million. ESPN bid on 10 of the 12 new games, which works out to roughly $20.5 million per game.

On the schools' side, about $200 million was already flowing to conferences for those title-game rights. Take that out and the surplus is around $145 million a year. Spread across the Power 4, that is a little more than $2 million per school, and the split is uneven:

• Big Ten and SEC schools: about $2.5 million to $3 million a year.
• ACC and Big 12 schools: about $1 million to $1.5 million a year.

For scale, last season conferences received $4 million for each team that made the playoff and another $4 million for each team that reached the quarterfinals. One deep playoff run is still worth more than a year of expansion money.

MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher put it bluntly in a statement quoted by Forbes: "a larger playoff does not necessarily mean greater financial benefits for all conferences and institutions."

What It Changes for You as a Fan

The format change lands on your calendar and your wallet in three concrete ways.

1. December gets a new shape

The regular season will end on Saturday, November 27, and the playoff will begin the first full week of December. First and second round games run Thursday through Saturday. No playoff game will be scheduled against Army vs. Navy, and Heisman weekend moves a week earlier, to December 3 to 5.

Conference championship Saturday is the big loss. Forbes notes the SEC title game drew about 17 million viewers last season, the seventh most watched game of the year and more than two of the first-round playoff games. That window is gone after this season.

2. Home playoff tickets become a real purchase decision

Sixteen campus games means far more fans will face a short-notice playoff ticket at their own stadium. Those sales typically come with the same service and facility charges as any big event, so check the all-in price before you commit. Our breakdown of why a $100 ticket turns into $134 at checkout walks through where that markup comes from.

3. Where you watch stays mostly the same

All 23 games go to ESPN and ABC, with ESPN keeping the right to sublicense some games (it already sublicenses to TNT Sports). The deal guarantees at least three games from each of the first and second rounds on ABC, which is over the air. If you are weighing which subscriptions to keep through the bowl season, our guide to what it now costs to watch your team lays out the bundle math.

The Risk Nobody Has Solved: A Weaker Regular Season

Fans did not ask for this. In August the CFP commissioned a Nielsen Sports survey, reported by Forbes, which found 63% of avid fans and 76% of casual fans wanted no expansion. Fewer than 10% of either group favored 24 teams.

The counterweight is behavior. Of the fans who opposed expansion, 71% said they would not watch fewer games. CFP executive director Rich Clark said fan sentiment "was certainly weighed into the decision." ESPN's own college sports programming chief, Nick Dawson, admitted the regular-season effect is "impossible to know for sure."

The bowls take a hit too. Last season 82 teams were bowl eligible and 12 went to the playoff, leaving 70 for the bowl system. With 24 playoff spots, that same pool would leave 58, and ESPN owns several of those bowls. It says no decisions have been made on their future.

What Happens Between Now and the First 24-Team Bracket

This season is still a 12-team playoff. Georgia sits No. 1 in the committee's second ranking, released November 10, followed by Utah, Alabama and UCLA, according to ESPN's bracket projection. Rankings come out every Tuesday, and the final one on Sunday, December 6 sets the bracket. This year's title game is in Las Vegas on January 25.

Next season, the first 24-team title game is set for New Orleans on Monday, January 24. Selection Day and other key dates have not been announced. Watch for each Power 4 conference to say how it will name a champion without a title game, since that rule now decides four automatic bids.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does the College Football Playoff expand to 24 teams?

The 24-team format starts next season. This season's playoff is still the 12-team version, and the CFP says the field stays at 24 teams through the end of its ESPN agreement.

How many teams get a bye in the 24-team playoff?

Eight. Seeds 1 to 8 skip the first round and host a second-round game on campus. Seeds 9 to 16 host first-round games against seeds 17 to 24.

Are conference championship games ending?

Forbes reports that the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC each said this season's title game will be their last. The CFP's own release says the decision rests with each conference, and each one will set how it names its champion.

How much money do schools make from the 24-team playoff?

Forbes estimates the net new money at about $145 million a year after lost title-game revenue, or a little over $2 million per school. Big Ten and SEC schools are expected to gain more than ACC and Big 12 schools.

Where will the 24-team playoff games be played?

First and second round games are on the higher seed's campus, 16 games in all. Quarterfinals and semifinals rotate among the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Peach, Rose and Sugar bowls.

The Bottom Line

The 24-team College Football Playoff swaps conference title games for eight more campus playoff games and a lot more at-large access. For most schools the money is modest, around $1 million to $3 million a year. For fans, the change is bigger: a top-eight finish now means a home game and a week of rest, and a 9-3 season that used to end in a minor bowl can now end in a home playoff game.

Watch the final ranking on December 6. It is the last 12-team bracket, and the last one shaped by conference championship weekend.