The Big Ten's Tony Petitti is trying to sell the unsellable concept that a 24-team CFP is better

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The Big Ten's Tony Petitti is trying to sell the unsellable concept that a 24-team CFP is better originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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"Welcome to tonight's play-in game between No. 10 Miami and No. 23 Iowa …. " 

This is what Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti is trying to sell in a proposal to expand the College Football Playoff to 24 teams. It creates an endless debate when it comes to the future of the College Football Playoff. 

Petitti addressed the topic at the Terranea Resort, a resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, on Tuesday. This is perhaps the symbol of the modernized coast-to-coast opulence of the 18-team Big Ten. 

"We're up against some older traditions, which are like college football is the last place where every team in the postseason has to be stone-lock legit chance to win the championship," Petitti said via USA Today. "That's not the way playoffs work in any other sport, including the NCAA (basketball tournament)."

So we're selling Iowa vs. Miami – and the ACC, Big 12 and Big Ten are in line – and trying to create a different regular season in college football. 

"Football's hung on to that, and sometimes it gets confused that's making the regular season better," Petitti said. 

So let's ask the audience what they want to watch on the first weekend of December in multiple-choice fashion: 

A) Watch the Big Ten championship game between No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Indiana. Then watch Miami-Texas A&M two weeks later and argue about whether Miami or Notre Dame should be in the playoff. 

B) Watch Miami-Iowa in a CFP play-in game for the right to play a first-round game against No. 7 Texas A&M instead of a Big Ten championship game against No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Indiana. 

C) Watch Miami-Texas A&M in the first round of a 16-team playoff where the winner plays the winner of No. 2 Ohio State and No. 15 Utah – who play on the same day – instead of a Big Ten championship between No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Indiana. 

Answer: C. 'A' is what we're doing now. 'B' is what Petitti wants. 'C' is what SEC commissioner Greg Sankey wants and what would be the easiest thing to sell to most college football fans.

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How will TV viewership do in 24-team CFP?

Do the power brokers have a gauge of how many people are going to watch that Iowa-Miami game? 

Indiana-Ohio State drew 18.3 million viewers on Fox. It's not going to get close to that Big Ten championship game number. 

The first-round game between Miami and Texas A&M last season drew 14.78 million viewers. Would the Iowa-Miami game be closer to that or the 6.24 million viewers who watched the snoozer between Ole Miss and Tulane in the next game, which went head to head with the NFL matchup between the Eagles and Commanders? 

Would Iowa-Miami do better than the Pop-Tarts Bowl matchup between No. 12 BYU and No. 22 Georgia Tech on Dec. 27 – which drew 8.7 million viewers? That is the best-case number, right? 

The selling point, of course, is more participation from more teams, and of course games on more networks. Fox and CBS would be able to bid for rights for first-round CFB games in a 24-team format. 

More teams worked for the MLB – where Petitti was head of the MLB Network from 2008-20. MLB has a 12-team playoff, and the Wild Card set viewership records in 2025 – albeit ratings aided by a Yankees-Red Sox series. 

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Will 24-team CFP damage regular season? 

Here is the difference. The MLB has 162 games to figure out those 12 teams. College football has 12 regular-season games – and Petitti used Iowa to make his point that those November games matter more. 

"I don't get why we can't have a Minnesota-Iowa game have real impact every so often, every year actually," Petitti said. "Why can't we do that?"

It does matter. Iowa and Minnesota play for the Floyd of Rosedale – which honors a pig that died of cholera before the matchup between the Gophers and Hawkeyes in 1936. That might not mean something to the television executives trying to double the playoff field – but it's one of those special Big Ten traditions we love.

The Big Ten pointed out 80 teams would have participated in the College Football Playoff in a 24-team format since 2014. Iowa would have made it six times, and Minnesota one time.The Hawkeyes won 10 of the last 12 meetings against the Gophers – and the 2019 matchup is the only one where both teams were ranked. You can put lipstick on it – but Iowa-Minnesota is still about the pig. 

All that comes at the potential expense of Ohio State-Michigan – which drew 18.42 million viewers in 2025. There is an insistence that a 24-team playoff would not decrease the value of the best rivalry in college football.

"I can't envision a world where that would happen," Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said via USA Today. "I don't think it devalues it at all. I think it actually increases the value, in my opinion, because more games become more important at the end of the season. I don't think it'll take away from our game, and I don't think it'll take away from other rivalry games."

It still comes with questions. Would starters rest for that end-of-season game ahead of potentially playing five playoff games? Would Ohio State-Michigan be moved up on the schedule? Will that create the same great theater in an environment where a playoff rematch is possible?

Yes, the consequences have changed. The only Michigan-Ohio State game of the last five years that drew less than 15 million viewers – Michigan's 13-10 upset against No. 2 Ohio State in 2024 – preceded the Buckeyes' CFP championship run. That number would have been much lower had Ohio State won in blowout fashion. 

Michigan-Ohio State ratings (2021-25)

Source: Sports Media Watch

Will the viewership numbers change when the consequences of that game come down to seeding in the CFP? After all, a three-loss Michigan team would have been safely in a 24-team playoff last year. It's not the same – and ratings will eventually reflect that. 

Don't think it can change? Notre Dame and USC do not play this year. USC, of course, is in the Big Ten now, and has marquee matchups against Ohio State on Halloween in The Coliseum and at defending national champion Indiana on Nov. 7 in Bloomington. The Trojans, Buckeyes and Hoosiers all are inside our top-10 in our Sporting News Post-Spring Top 25 – and those regular-season matchups mean more in a CFP chase that includes 12 or 16 teams.

It's not about being "stone-lock legit" national championship teams, but you should at least be playoff worthy. Look at the final CFP rankings from last year and stop when a team does not appear playoff worthy: No. 11 Notre Dame (10-2), No. 12 BYU (11-2), No. 13 Texas (9-3), No. 14 Vanderbilt (10-2), No. 15 Utah (10-2), No. 16 USC (9-3), No. 17 Arizona (9-3), No. 18 Michigan (9-3) ….  

Utah is the line, right? USC and Michigan missed out because they lost to Notre Dame and Ohio State, respectively. We like that tradition, and the 16-team CFP is probably the last compromise before that changes even more. 

All this leads to the mic being passed to Sankey for the SEC Meetings from May 26-28 in Destin, Fla. Sankey is expected to stump for the 16-team CFP against the other three Power 4 commissioners – and that "16 or 24" debate will continue through Dec. 1 – which is the deadline for a potential expansion.

Sankey is still trying to sell 16 teams, and with good reason. The SEC has had 11 teams inside the top 16 in the CFP rankings the last two seasons. The Big Ten has seven. That is 18 of 32 teams – or 56.3% – of the field. Those numbers increase to 12 for the SEC and 11 for the Big Ten in a 24-team format. That is 23 of 48 teams – or 47.9% – of the field. Those two conferences will get around half the teams no matter which format we choose.

It all comes back to that question. Can you actually sell No. 10 Miami vs. No. 23 Iowa over what we already have in No. 7 Texas A&M vs. No. 10 Miami with those conference championship games? Or would you rather try No. 7 Texas A&M vs. No. 10 Miami and No. 2 Ohio State vs. No. 15 Utah first? 

As a college football fan, I know which one I would watch.

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