No plans to expand College Football Playoff past four teams
This is a Nov. 4, 2015, file photo showing College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock speaking during a press conference, in Rosemont, Ill. Credit: AP/Charles Rex Arbogast
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The College Football Playoff, with its four-team format, won’t expand in the foreseeable future.
The playoff’s governance held its annual meeting of the board of managers to discuss expanding the event.
The consensus? The playoff, in year five of its 12-year contract with ESPN, won’t be going past four teams anytime soon.
“As far as expanding the number of teams in the playoff, it’s way too soon — much too soon — to know if that is even a possibility,” Mark Keenum, chairman of the playoff board of managers and president of Mississippi State, said in a statement.
Keenum said the board — 11 university presidents and chancellors representing each Football Bowl Subdivision conference and independents — is in “unanimous agreement that the playoff has been a tremendous success.”
In an interview after the meeting, Keenum said the group was focused on how the administration can make the playoff more successful because “the consensus was very pleased with the current format.”
The statement said administrators are “very happy” with the 12-year contract with ESPN. CFP executive director Bill Hancock said there is nothing in the contract that suggests any changes could be made.
“There’s some misconception about a look-in after a certain number of years. Misconception,” Hancock said. “There’s no look-in, there’s no clause in the contract about changes.”
The structure, introduced during the 2014-15 college football season, was widely accepted in its first four seasons, unlike the Bowl Championship Series that existed from 1998-2013.
Since the playoff began, the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference have had six and five teams appear, respectively, most among major conferences. Some Power Five conference winners, however, have been left out of the four-team playoff in multiple years. The Big Ten champion has missed the last three semifinals.
“That didn’t come up today,” Keenum said when asked about the Big Ten’s case. “It’s a four-team playoff . . . it’s a Power Five makeup. Any given year, if you have one of those four champions in the playoff, there’s going to be someone on the outside looking in. That’s the inherent nature of the playoff.”
