executives and athletic directors alike has, yet again, been College Football Playoff expansion.
Last week in Destin, Florida, when the Southeastern Conference held its annual spring meetings, it was no different.
Headed into the week, it was widely believed that the SEC was against expansion, with their TV partner ESPN holding the exclusive rights to the 12-team playoff format. However, that’s not completely true.
With the move to nine league games starting in 2026, coaches believed the playoff would be expanded to 16, allowing more room for error with a tougher strength of schedule.
“I remember last year, we were told if we went to nine games the Big Ten would vote for a 16-team playoff,” Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “[We’re] in 2026 and, I think, we’re still at a 12-team playoff.”
New Florida head coach Jon Sumrall backed up Drinkwitz’ statement, telling the media that coaches felt misled about going to nine conference games.
ESPN holds the rights to a playoff up to 14 teams; anything larger than that will probably not be supported by the SEC league office and commissioner Greg Sankey.
“Four to 12 [teams] was monumental, but I think it was justifiable,” Sankey said. “You want to be careful about how far you go.”
It’s important for fans to understand that playoff expansion is and will never be about the betterment of the sport, but about what network and league can make the most money. Of course, the SEC is not in favor of expansion because it would lose the rights to the second-most-viewed sports league in the country behind the NFL.
FOX, CBS and even streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video — who have recently dove into live sports with the WWE and NBA Playoffs respectively — would probably all love to take a bite of the College Football Playoff pie from ESPN.
FOX Sports CEO Eric Shanks even believes a 24-team playoff is “the best model we’ve seen.”
The entire debate of whether the playoff should or shouldn’t expand boils down to the media rights, and I wouldn’t expect expansion unless ESPN is made promises about those rights. On the matter of if the playoff should go to 16 or 24 teams, the ACC, Big 12 and Big 10 have already announced publicly that they’re in favor of 24.
At the end of the day, competitive nature doesn’t care if or when the playoff expands or to how many teams — either you have to win more postseason games to become a champion, or every week of the regular season is do-or-die. This is the mindset of Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer.
“I’ve heard the arguments from obviously 12,” coach DeBoer said. “I know 12, 16 and 24 seem to be the most popular, right? So, I can make an argument for all of them. I know for me, it’s really not about a number. It’s about just trying to win every football game so you don’t have to put it in a committee’s hands and that’s our goal as a program at Alabama.”
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