Source: Rose Bowl enables 12-team CFP in ’24

10:06 PM ET Pete ThamelESPN The last remaining challenge to expanding the College Football Playoff to 12 teams in the 2024 and 2025 seasons has been cleared.A source told ESPN on Wednesday night that the Rose Bowl has accepted terms that will pave the way for the College Football Playoff to broaden in the final two seasons of the present agreement– 2024 and 2025. Anymore steps towards a broadened playoff are a procedure, as the official announcement of the CFP expansion beginning in 2024 is expected to be imminent.In early September, the College Football Playoff board of supervisors voted to broaden the CFP to 12 groups starting in 2026. With nearly$450 million at stake in the last 2 years of the present contract, the path toward broadening in those 2 seasons has actually been laden with issues.2 Associated However after months of haggling,

getting the Rose Bowl on board loomed as the final action. The Rose Bowl required to change its contract as the other 5 so-called”contract bowls”required to do in order to accommodate the new

system. Eventually, the Rose Bowl’s cooperation loomed as the last barrier.A source told ESPN’s Heather Dinich previously today that the Rose Bowl was essentially provided a demand this week to agree to terms or risk being shut out of the next tv contract, which starts in 2026. The Rose Bowl’s requests for special treatment included an exclusive window for the game– a tv window considered among the most important in sports– in years when the Rose Bowl wasn’t hosting a College Football Championship game on New Year’s. Basically, sources informed ESPN that CFP officials informed Rose Bowl authorities this week that they ‘d make good-faith efforts to deal with them. But that would not include the special window for the Rose Bowl that isn’t a part of the CFP. Any of the Rose Bowl’s demands that involved the next contract– be it financial

or otherwise– were impossible to even attend to, as there’s no way to understand what the tv contracts for the next version of the CFP will look like.Ultimately, if the Rose Bowl wanted to take part in the next version of the CFP, it required to accept a function that didn’t consist of significant special favors. The approaching statement puts an end to the awkward and complex process to broaden the College Football Playoff, which has represented the fractured and nonlinear structure of college sports.

To reach the September growth decision to 12 teams, it took substantial momentum swings that consisted of introducing a 12-team proposal in June 2021. That eventually got shot down amid conference infighting, resulting in second-guessing on why a potential model was announced prior to it was approved by all the constituents.The following year, the college presidents who make up the CFP board of managers essentially chose to work backwards, very first approving the 12-team design in September that would begin in 2026. They then targeted 2024 and 2025, which was always going to be complicated since it needed presidents from all 10 conferences and Notre Dame to concur unanimously.Then the group of commissioners dove in for months of conferences, calls and all the information including schedule, championship game, game sits, the scholastic calendar and tv agreement problems. Three full months later on, the board of managers pushed through all the issues– revenue distribution was a huge one– until finally resolving the Rose Bowl problem on Wednesday night. The 12-team playoff will start in the 2024 season, meaning simply two more four-team playoffs– this year and next– prior to the sport’s postseason modifications indelibly.