Ideally, the people who run the College Football Playoff would not discuss the soon-to-be-expanded College Football Playoff expansion before the soon-to-be-expanded College Football Playoff is officially expanded.
Again, this is college football. Nothing seems to be happening on time, fast or slow.
On Tuesday, the format for the expanded 12-team playoffs to determine the 2024 and 2025 champions was finally announced just six months before the season begins.
By Wednesday, the contenders (which is becoming just the Big Ten and SEC) presented options to expand it to 14 teams after 2026. The proposal includes additional automatic qualifiers, unequal revenue distribution, and all sorts of other ideas that would benefit the Big Ten and the SEC.
A better idea would be to continue a major change in the 12-team model for a year or two. You might consider what works and what doesn't, what needs to change and what doesn't.
Jumping from four teams to 12 teams is already a shock to the system. It's almost certainly better, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to take it for a test drive.
However, the Big Ten and SEC remain uncertain about how the selection process will go, how the regular season will be affected, how home-field playoff games will work, and how the college football calendar will reach its 300th day. They are reluctant to know whether it will be extended or not. A new year is a good idea. Next season's title game will be held on January 20th.
There is power to grab and guaranteed money. why wait?
Let's start with what's coming up for the next two seasons. It's a 12-team model that offers automatic bids to the five highest-rated teams in the conference. It's almost mathematically certain that the top four will be the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC. The top four finishers will receive a one-round bye.
The fifth automatic bid goes to the best champion of the so-called Group of 5 league. This is a chance to nationalize the event, introduce elements of Cinderella, and most notably avoid exclusion lawsuits. This is a good deal for the sport as a whole and gives a chance to a quality champion in the Mountain West who is 12-1.
The rest of the field has seven at-large bids available to all non-champions (including independents like Notre Dame). Seeds 5-8 will host seeds 9-12 on campus in mid-December. The winner will play against seeds 1-4. The next three rounds are played at a neutral location, usually a traditional bowl location.
That should be rocket fuel for the sport.
However, there is currently no agreement regarding the playoffs beyond the 2026 season. New agreements will need to be struck both between conferences and with broadcast partners.
Therefore, there is already talk of expanding to 14 teams.
This includes up to four automatic bids for both the Big Ten and SEC. This provides other competitive advantages, including certainty of revenue, increased number of teams in the same bracket, and perceived superiority over the ACC and Big 12, among others. Recruitment trajectory.
This is the next step for the Big Ten and SEC to become the true Big Two in college athletics.
It feels unnecessary, especially at this point.
Yes, two more playoff games should give them more TV money. But how much? ESPN is reportedly offering $1.3 billion annually for 11 games in a 12-team format, or an average of about $118 million per game.
What's the value of two more first-round matchups? Maybe $100 million a year each? That's certainly good money, but not when it's split into so many slices.
Do the SEC and Big Ten really need additional automatic bids? Are they concerned that the second- and third-place teams won't be able to secure at-large spots based on merit? Historically, no one disputes the strength and depth of the league, especially post-expansion.
Are they trying to eliminate the subjectivity of the playoff selection committee by subjectively declaring that they always have the three or four best teams? perhaps.
Or is it just that it's becoming increasingly clear that everyone else has to follow their wishes or risk the outcome, i.e. a “playoffs” featuring just the Big Ten and SEC? Shall we?
One of the only positives here would be if more automatic bids led to the elimination of conference championship games, but this would be largely irrelevant and instead of competing with the NFL postseason. That would allow the playoffs to end in early January. However, that would require the Big Ten and SEC to withdraw from money-making events.
Some patience is recommended.
The problem is, you may not have much time. Original sin returned in 2021 when the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 formed what they called the “Alliance.” This was a political response to the SEC's expansion to 16 teams with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas. The Alliance was so intimidated and agitated that it banded together to oppose almost everything SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey supported. This included a 12-team playoff with six automatic bids starting in the 2023 season. The Alliance rejected it.
Then the Big Ten raided the Pac-12 (which no longer exists) and the alliance ended.
So instead of having at least one season of experience to make a decision in 2023 or signing a long-term deal for a 12-team playoff, this strange stopgap featuring a much different power dynamic can get.
There are no longer duels in which superpowers check each other. The Big Ten and SEC are bigger, richer, and more powerful than ever before, working together to do what's best for them.
But as the expansion of expansions before the first expansion suggests, that may not be what's best for the sport as a whole.
