College Football Playoff expansion will be starting in two years.
The College Football Playoff officially announced Thursday that it will expand to 12 teams beginning in 2024.
: The College Football Playoff will expand to 12 teams beginning in the 2024-25 season!
— College Football Playoff (@CFBPlayoff) December 1, 2022
Details https://t.co/O4ZiAOQ4HZ#CFBPlayoff pic.twitter.com/5ZTVGXTZbo
The first round of the inaugural 12-team playoff in 2024 will be played during the third week of December, with games expected to be played on Friday and Saturday, though game dates have not yet been finalized. First-round games will be held at either the home field of the higher-seeded team or at another site designated by the higher seed.
The quarterfinals and semifinals will be held at the six bowl sites that currently make up the New Year’s Six. Specific dates for quarterfinal and semifinal games have not yet been announced, but the national championship games for the first two years of the 12-team playoff will be played on Jan. 20, 2025 in Atlanta and Jan. 19, 2026 in Miami.
The CFP’s announcement comes after officials from the Rose Bowl, which had been hesitant to agree to expansion due to its traditional New Year’s Day time slot, signed an agreement Wednesday night allowing expansion to move forward in 2024.
Source: CFP officials have been informed that the Rose Bowl has signed an agreement that will allow the College Football Playoff to expand to 12 teams in 2024 and 2025.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) December 1, 2022
Earlier this year, on Sept. 2, the College Football Playoff Board of Managers voted to expand the postseason tournament, with the desired starting year in 2026. However, the board tasked the College Football Management Committee – a group of 10 presidents, chancellors and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick – with determining whether the expanded playoff could begin in 2024 or 2025.
According to several reports over the last few weeks, the Rose Bowl was the only entity standing in the way of the Management Committee's task, as the bowl game's representatives had delayed for months to amend its contract to pave the way for CFP expansion in two years. Due to the playoff’s contract with each of the New Year’s Six bowls that runs through the 2025 season, all six of them had to agree to the terms of expansion for expansion to move forward before 2026.
When the Board of Managers and Management Committee finally grew tired of the Rose Bowl's inaction, the CFP placed an end-of-the-month deadline on the bowl to decide its fate – either agree to expansion or be left behind.
In the late hours of Wednesday night, the Rose Bowl signed on to expand the playoff from four to 12 teams, launching college football into a new future. For the first time in history, an extensive, month-long tournament will provide the Football Bowl Subdivision with an undisputed champion who will have to win three or four games in a row to be crowned as the best team in the sport.
“We're delighted to be moving forward,” CFP executive director Bill Hancock said in a statement. “More teams and more access mean more excitement for fans, alumni, students and student-athletes. We appreciate the leaders of the six bowl games and the two future national championship game host cities for their cooperation. Everyone realized that this change is in the best interest of college football and pulled together to make it happen.”
