Nick Saban opposes 24-team College Football Playoff expansion, offers ‘compromise’
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By all accounts, the College Football Playoff will likely expand to 24 teams starting in 2027.
While ESPN stands to benefit from the expansion with more high-value CFP game inventory, ESPN college football analyst Nick Saban isn’t among those in favor of the decision.
“I would be for 16 (teams) – I think that would be a good compromise,” Saban said Friday on The Pat McAfee Show. “I would be for keeping conference championship games as maybe a play-in for the 16? Which, now, you have 20 teams that have hope. But I don’t think there’s much support for that. I don’t think anybody really likes that.”
Reports say the new playoff format will be a “19+4+1” model: 19 at-large bids, four reserved for Power Four champions, and one for the highest-rated Group of Six champ. Given the expanded schedule, that will likely end conference championship games and the revenue they bring in.
According to CBS Sports’ Brandon Marcello, an expanded CFP could add $320 million to the current deal.
“My only concern about the 24-team College Football Playoff is the amount of games these guys are playing..
I get a little concerned about how much is too much when it comes to how many games a college player plays..
I think 16 would be a good compromise for the College Football Playoff” ~ Coach Saban #PMSLive
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) October 16, 2026
“The bottom line is money. That’s the bottom line,” Saban said on ESPN. “Universities need it because of the way we’re spending more now for players. There’s still a cost to having Olympic sports, which are important, I think to be able to keep and give people opportunities to compete. And how do we do that?
“I think we also have to look at some kind of budget that we can have so that everybody kind of is competing at the same level and everybody can plan on, ‘How much are we going to spend here?'”
“And I want players to make money, and I want them to have name, image, likeness opportunities. But I think we have to put some kind of budget on it so people can operate. Every business has a budget. I don’t know how any business survives if you don’t have a budget. So why wouldn’t we need that in college athletics?”
Saban has become an extremely vocal thought leader in college football, especially after hanging up the headset and settling into a media role that has given him a pulpit to speak directly to leagues and fans. He’s also been one of the leading voicesaround the push for the Protect College Sports Act.
While his desire to cap the CFP at 16 games and his support for the PCSA are different issues, they share one commonality: a strong desire to put the genie back in the bottle when it comes to college football as a billion-dollar business that has to reckon with compensating players fairly.
It’s also humorous to hear Nick Saban chide college football players and others about money-related concerns after watching the documentary about his coaching career and seeing him change jobs several times specifically because of money.
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