The College Football Playoff has seen a lot of success over the past decade. Recently, it was Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines that captured the national championship over the Washington Huskies.
Now, college football is ready to take this to the next level. Recently, the NCAA has announced an expanded playoff format. It will go from four teams to 12 teams.
Due to all of the extra games in the format, broadcasting rights needed to be determined. Now, the College Football Playoff appears ready to call a new media partner home.
TNT Getting Two College Football Playoff Games Per Year
According to Ari Meirov of The 33rd Team, TNT and ESPN have reached an agreement for certain College Football Playoff rights. This agreement will last for five years from 2024-28.
What will this coverage look like? For the first two years of this agreement, TNT will have the rights to two College Football Playoff games in the first round. Then, TNT will be able to broadcast two quarterfinal games per year in the College Football Playoff for the final three years of this agreement.
Looking at the New Format
Under the old playoff format, assigning dates, times, and broadcasting rights was rather simple. Two of the “New Year’s Six” bowls would simply be host venues for the semi-final games a little over a week before the national championship game. All three of these playoff games were broadcast on ESPN.
Now, it is a little more complicated. That is because there are 11 games under the new format and an additional two rounds of playoff coverage. Plus, the first-round playoff games are going to be hosted by whichever school is the higher seed.
College Football Moving Forward
This agreement is another sign that college football is only getting bigger and bigger. For a long time, bowl games and playoff games were broadcast exclusively by ESPN and ABC. Now, it appears that ESPN is willing to let go of the monopoly they have had on playoff coverage in favor of expansion.
It is also important to note just how much conference realignment is coming up during the timeline of this agreement. This realignment is likely going to lead to the destruction of the Pac-12 conference. However, it could lead to each conference having more of a national reach going into this new playoff format.
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