Presidential Committee Accelerates Push for 24-Team College Football Playoff Expansion

POLICY WIRE — Dallas, USA — This week, a critical annual gathering in Dallas brings together the members of the College Football Playoff (CFP) governance committee, comprising the ten FBS conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director. For over a decade, this committee has grappled with the persistent issue of postseason expansion, navigating discussions from two teams to four, then to the current 12-team format, and now, a year-long public debate over the next iteration: 16 or 24 teams.

However, a significant new development has emerged during these meetings. The CFP committee is no longer the sole high-level group actively engaged in playoff expansion discussions, signaling a potential shift in the landscape of collegiate athletics.

Government Influence in Collegiate Sports

A recently formed presidential “media” committee, a 14-person body whose existence is supported by the White House, is conducting serious discussions about the future of college football’s postseason. One CFP committee member recently remarked on this newfound involvement, stating, “We asked the government for help with NIL, and now they’re involved in the playoff.”

Last week, this presidential committee engaged in a compelling discussion, identifying multiple avenues for the industry to generate additional revenue, particularly to assist financially struggling institutions. A key proposal stemming from these talks is the expansion of the playoff to 24 teams.

“I think it’s accurate to say that there is a coalescing around 24,” said a high-placed stakeholder who holds positions within both the CFP governance committee and the presidential group.

The 2026 College Football Playoff format is currently set, but future adjustments to 16, 20, or even 24 teams remain possible. The presidential committee includes several influential figures, such as commissioners from the Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, ACC, and American conferences, alongside Notre Dame’s athletic director – all of whom are key decision-makers for the CFP.

Other notable members of this powerful committee include executives from ESPN and Fox, prominent business magnates like Gerry Cardinale and David Blitzer, and Boris Epshteyn, a Republican political strategist and long-time advisor to President Donald Trump. The committee is chaired by Cody Campbell, a Texas billionaire and close ally of Trump, who, alongside New York Yankees president Randy Levine, is spearheading a federal initiative to reform college sports.

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Growing Support for a 24-Team Model

Support for a 24-team playoff is not limited to members of the presidential committee operating outside traditional college athletics. Reports indicate that during a recent meeting, at least three of the four major conference commissioners, along with Notre Dame, either explicitly supported or expressed a strong willingness to explore a 24-team proposal. Notably, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey was absent from that particular discussion.

Crucially, the presidential media committee lacks direct authority to implement changes to the playoff structure. That power primarily resides with the Big Ten and SEC conferences, a prerogative granted to them by other conferences two years prior. The committee’s role is to ultimately formulate recommendations for the White House, which could then inform potential congressional legislation.

Despite this, the committee’s meetings have generated significant momentum among commissioners for a 24-team playoff. Such an expansion is projected to generate hundreds of millions in additional revenue, fundamentally reshape college football’s regular season and postseason, and potentially alter the entire industry’s trajectory. This represents a notable shift, given that as recently as January, this group had favored a 16-team format backed by the SEC, an initiative that the Big Ten had reportedly stalled in favor of its own 24-team vision.

The question now is whether CFP governance members are indeed coalescing behind the 24-team model. A fundamental truth remains: any new CFP format requires the agreement of both the SEC and the Big Ten. Coincidentally, the CFP meetings in Dallas this week have allocated substantial time for discussing playoff expansion, though no final decision is anticipated immediately, with the 12-team postseason remaining in place for the current year.

SEC Perspectives and Financial Pressures

Within the SEC, public and private signals suggest support for a 24-team playoff among football coaches and athletic directors. Some even believe a majority of these groups would also favor eliminating the league’s conference championship game. Prominent figures like Alabama Athletic Director Greg Byrne and Georgia Coach Kirby Smart publicly endorsed this last month.

Many within the SEC expressed frustration over last year’s decision to move to a nine-game conference schedule, believing it was predicated on an imminent playoff expansion. Auburn’s athletic director noted, “The expectation of every athletic director in the SEC was that at some level, the nine-game schedule was going to be combined with at least a 16-team CFP field.”

Ole Miss Chancellor Glenn Boyce stated he would not have voted for the ninth game if expansion wasn’t guaranteed, telling an outlet, “I would’ve said no.” The SEC’s presidents and chancellors, who oversee Commissioner Sankey, often adhere to long-standing traditional values.

For the past 18 months, various presidents and Commissioner Sankey himself have advocated for a 16-team postseason. Their reasoning included easing into expansion, preserving the highly valuable conference championship game (generating upwards of $80 million annually), and protecting the SEC’s regular season, a crucial asset for renegotiating television deals.

However, with programs investing over $30 million in football rosters, the demand for greater access and increased revenue intensifies. Coach Smart articulated this sentiment earlier this spring, stating, “I think 24 teams is good for the fan bases. I think when coaches and ADs look at it, we’re looking at our fan bases having an expectation that they want to be in the playoffs — it’s playoffs or bust.”

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The Big Ten’s Evolving Playoff Strategy

The Big Ten’s playoff proposal has evolved considerably to garner necessary support, much like legislative adjustments to secure a majority. It began two years ago in the spring of 2024, when Commissioner Tony Petitti privately presented a 16-team format to some CFP governance committee members. This model included uneven automatic qualifiers: four each for the SEC and Big Ten, two for the ACC and Big 12, one for the Group of Six, and three at-large bids.

Despite support from many SEC athletic directors, this initial concept faced resistance from most other CFP members and ultimately failed last May. During their annual spring meetings, several coaches, notably Kirby Smart, spoke against the format, leading to a shift in support towards a 16-team model with a larger at-large pool.

By last fall, the Big Ten’s concept had transformed into a 20- or 24-team model featuring an equal number of automatic qualifiers for the power leagues. More recently, the league explored an all at-large 24-team format, potentially including a path for an automatic Group of Six bid.

The most discussed model, central to the presidential committee’s latest talks, envisions a 24-team field primarily based on CFP rankings. It grants first-round byes to the top eight teams and schedules the first two rounds on campus, with the six CFP bowls hosting quarterfinals and semifinals. While this concept adds only one additional round, it introduces 12 new games, more than doubling the current 11-game CFP field.

This could potentially offset the financial losses associated with power four conference championship games, estimated to be between $150-200 million. However, critics of a 24-team field question the lofty financial projections for these additional games, many of which would feature teams with three or four losses. They ask whether these games would truly be valuable. For instance, a scenario from last year could have seen 8-4 Iowa play 10-2 Miami, and 10-2 Vanderbilt host 10-3 Virginia, with three-loss teams like Georgia Tech, Houston, and Michigan also entering the field.

Opponents argue that such a format would devalue the regular season, long considered college football’s most cherished asset. While proponents believe November conference games would gain value, detractors contend that September non-conference games would become less meaningful. Conversely, supporters of the 24-team field argue that administrators would be more inclined to schedule high-level, revenue-generating non-conference matchups. This is because the penalty for a loss would be less severe, as a third or even fourth defeat would not necessarily lead to elimination from playoff contention.

“I think 24 solves an enormous amount of problems,” stated Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks last week at the Sports Business Journal’s World Congress of Sports. “You can create (A) more valuable games that the schools need, but (B) one of the big knocks against college football is the first three weeks. It’s actually hard to find great games.”

While Fox executives have publicly supported the 24-team field, ESPN executives have privately expressed reservations. ESPN currently holds the rights to the 12-team playoff for the next six years and, despite potentially having the first right to bid on additional games, it’s unclear if the network would pursue them, especially after sublicensing 15 playoff games to TNT Sports over the same period. Significantly, the playoff preferences of the Big Ten and SEC align with their respective media partners. ESPN serves as the exclusive media rights holder for the SEC, while Fox is the primary media rights holder for the Big Ten, collectively paying nearly $2 billion annually to these leagues.

Path Forward and Key Considerations

The presidential media committee is one of six groups established following President Trump’s college sports roundtable event in February. Each committee is tasked with exploring a specific component of a potential legislative bill, including media, NCAA rules, player agent relationships, legislative work, NCAA reform, and an oversight committee. The media committee’s primary objective is to identify methods for college football, the second most-watched American sport after the NFL, to increase revenue.

This is particularly crucial at a time when millions of dollars in athlete compensation are straining institutions, many of which accumulated financial burdens through high coaching salaries and facilities debt in a competitive recruiting landscape. Discussions also encompassed cost-containment strategies, such as regionalizing non-revenue sports and potentially capping or limiting compensation for coaches and administrators. However, the core of the conversation revolves around revenue-generating concepts.

These concepts include optimizing college football’s early-season schedule (more games on Week Zero and Sundays before the NFL season), establishing a playoff for Group of Six programs (perhaps four G6 conference champions not making the CFP field), unifying media rights, or more equitably redistributing wealth among the ten FBS leagues. And, of course, the expansion of the College Football Playoff to 24 teams remains a central point of discussion.

SEC Commissioner Sankey was not the only absence from last week’s presidential committee call; Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks and ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro were also missing. This could be a deliberate move to prevent any appearance of legal issues, such as collusion. Commissioner Sankey is expected to attend the ongoing annual CFP gathering in Dallas.

The governance committee’s agenda includes various items: a potential adjustment to determine the Group of Six automatic bid in the 12-team field (from highest-ranked “team” to highest-ranked “conference champion”), a discussion about the CFP financial distribution for UConn (the lone remaining FBS independent outside Notre Dame), and the possible finalization of the CFP’s long-term governance document and the comprehensive ESPN contract. It is highly probable that, similar to the presidential committee’s recent discussions, the topic of playoff expansion will also be addressed during these critical CFP meetings.