COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF DATES VS NFL GAMES?!

The CFP Management committee kicked off 3 days of meetings on Tuesday, and SI’s Ross Dellenger is there detailing all the action. All 10 conferences and Notre Dame’s AD Jack Swarbrick make up the committee, and ESPN, along with all of the New Year’s Six Bowl executives were on hand as they all try to finalize details of the ‘24 and ‘25 12 team playoff expansion, while also prepping for a new contract in 2026 and beyond. The biggest puzzle piece that hasn’t been figured out yet includes the television rights, which are owned by ESPN through 2025.

ESPN is dealing with layoffs, and is trying to be savvy with how they spend their money on rights fees right now, and it looks like they have 2 choices: (1) televise all 11 CFP games in ’24–25 or (2) allow a second media outlet to bid on part of the package.

Bob Thompson, the former Fox Sports president, told Dellenger ““Given ESPN is the existing CFP media partner, it is likely that, at this point, they are the only entity that can negotiate for the added games in 2024 and 2025 as well as secure some sort of extension for additional years.” According to the contract, 2 additional years of expansion are valued at an extra $450M… but on the open market, it could fetch as much as 3 times that amount, so it’s not likely that they let ESPN talk them into additional years without it going to market. Especially considering conferences like the Big Ten and Pac 12 have been vocal about wanting multiple networks to be involved in the playoff - something like what the NFL has with their playoff system.

Along with the money side - they have to figure out when the games will actually be played. They’re navigating holidays, on-campus graduation ceremonies, the NFL schedule, and more.

Right now, Ross laid out some tentative dates that commissioners established back in the fall:

The first round would be the 3rd week in December, with one game on Friday night, and 3 on Saturday. That’s the same weekend the NFL begins playing 3 regular season games on Saturdays. Right as I was recording this, it was confirmed that in 2024 the first round games will include one game on Friday, Dec 20 and 3 on Saturday, Dec 21st.

The CFP quarterfinals have been planned to coincide with New Year’s Day and will remain unaffected by NFL games in 2024 and ’25. It's expected that three quarterfinal games will be played on New Year’s Day, with the remaining one scheduled for either New Year’s Eve or the following day, depending on the calendar.

The semifinals are set to take place approximately a week after the quarterfinals, with the exact date varying depending on the year. For instance, in 2024, the semifinals are slated for the weekend of Jan. 10–12, which coincides with NFL wild-card weekend when several playoff games are scheduled across Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Therefore, the most feasible solution would be to host the semifinals on Thursday and/or Friday evenings. Note that the championship game is anticipated to be rescheduled to a later date, perhaps by a week or two, but will remain on a Monday. As of right now, the title games are scheduled on Jan 20, 2025 in Atlanta, and Jan 19, 2026 in Miami.

So, we’re talking about getting pretty deep into January at that point. That gets awfully close to the NFL combine, which started on Feb 28th this year.

There has been a ton of talk about moving Week 1 into the spot where Week 0 currently resides, which is all an effort to avoid playing too deep into January, but that changes rivalry week off of Thanksgiving, replacing it with conference championship week. Army / Navy will probably have to move away from their standalone window, one would assume.

The bowl experience is also going to be changing - teams will be arriving 2 to 3 days ahead, instead of the typical 5 day bowl experience. They also still have to figure out ticket distribution, pricing, and management of the game.

All in all, we don’t have a lot that's definitive right now, but things are definitely moving forward. Remember, this all starts next season, so something has to be done fairly quickly.

From Thursday 4/27/23 full show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN1AGxcCf8M

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