'If we can get a decent deal, we are definitely going to 24' — CFP leaders discussing logistics of 24-team playoff

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ROSEMONT, Ill. — College Football Playoff leaders on Wednesday took another step down what's been a long, winding road to expanding the sport's postseason to 24 teams.

The fact that it happened here, in a Chicago suburb, within the headquarters of the Big Ten, came only as a coincidence. The league that originally pitched the 24-team playoff model hosted the annual gathering.

The consensus: A doubling of the postseason feels like a foregone conclusion — even if no one will say it publicly.

"We've worked through a lot of the other issues associated with [a 24-team] expansion and those things needed to happen before we started any kind of negotiation [over money]," CFP executive director Rich Clark said, peeling back the curtain a bit.

Discussions over a 24-team playoff field, introduced as a realistic proposal by the Big Ten last August, have accelerated this summer and, now, into the fall: From the SEC's staunch opposition to the format last fall, to the Big Ten blocking an expansion to 16 teams in January; from the ACC, Big 12 and Notre Dame shifting positions from 16 to 24 teams in March, to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey last month circulating requirements related to expansion — a sign of openness to accept a 24-team field (he's requiring all power league teams to play 10 games against power conference programs).

Here in Chicago, CFP executives held their first in-person gathering since deciding to enter into the 30-day negotiating window with ESPN over an expanded field. Conference commissioners are talking schedules, logistics and the elimination of their league championship games — all conversations held with ESPN as the network works to deliver a formal offer ahead of the expiration of its negotiating window (Oct. 9).

Things are serious — enough that Clark, when asked, revealed some of the schedule of a 24-team field. The new eight first-round games would "ideally" start a week after the regular season ends, he said, leaving an open week where the conference championship games are currently played. Also, the eight second-round games will "most likely" be played on the campus of the better seed in the third week of December, he said.

Would CFP executives really spend hundreds of hours of time over scheduling and logistics only to decide against expanding to 24 teams? It's unlikely, especially when considering that "the money is there," as one CFP stakeholder told Yahoo Sports. It's a reference to the single biggest determining factor on expansion: Can the power leagues recuperate the revenue lost from the elimination of their conference championship games?

That figure is believed to be at least $250 million.

"The revenue is an unknown," Clark said Wednesday. "That's why we're in this negotiating window."

CFP leaders and ESPN executives have until Oct. 9 to come to terms before CFP officials take their 24-team product to the open market. If that transpires, they'll have about two months until another deadline of Dec. 1 — a date in which expansion must be determined for a new playoff in 2027.

In the meantime, scheduling logistics remain one of the highest hurdles, specifically the situation with the Army-Navy game, one of the most-watched affairs traditionally played on the second Saturday in December. In a 24-team model, the game may move up a week, to the first Saturday in December, where conference championships now reside.

The game would kick off six days after the CFP committee selects the field. What if Army or Navy is in contention for a playoff spot?

It's a looming and unanswered question.

There are others.

What happens to the bowl games? While six bowls are incorporated into the CFP rotation, roughly a dozen other games that traditionally host power league teams will see their participants slip out of the top 25.

As reported at Yahoo Sports this spring, conference executives have been discussing the creation of a 10-bowl lineup that pits power conference programs against one another in a deal where the media rights would be controlled by the leagues and not the bowls.

Meanwhile, as Army-Navy and the bowls get sorted out, the road to a 24-team playoff is growing more and more clear.

"If we can get a decent [TV] deal, we are definitely going to 24," said one confident stakeholder.

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