CFP Expansion Is More About Money Than Finding True Champion On The Field | Barrett Sallee

The College Football Playoff and conference commissioners agreed to a new format for the postseason beginning in 2026 that will include 14 teams and likely pay a disproportionate amount to the SEC and Big Ten. The format will be finalized at a later date according to Yahoo Sports and ESPN will pay approximately $1.3 billion to broadcast the event. The report states that all four "Power Four" conferences will receive automatic bids for their conference champions and the highest-ranked Group of Five will also receive automatic inclusion to the CFP.

The rest of the details in the six-year contract, including specific format and conference payouts, aren’t yet set in stone. Make no mistake though, that’s where the "devil" will live. 

Yahoo reported last week that the SEC and Big Ten will combine to split approximately 58% of the massive pie (approximately $700 million), the ACC and Big 12 will split approximately 32% (approximately $400 million) and the remaining 10% (approximately $115 million) will be distributed to Notre Dame and the rest of the teams in FBS. 

The Big Ten and SEC’s higher split is likely a bi-product of the two conferences receiving multiple automatic bids in comparison to the rest of the group, which has been discussed among the group for more than a month. A proposal that would allow those two getting multiple automatic bids isn’t set in stone, but the group simply adding two "at-large" bids on top of the seven that will be in the 12-team format is about as likely as it would be for my hairline to stop receding.

What does this mean? It’s very simple. The powers-that-be don’t care about the national champion anymore. It can be argued — and I have done this for more than a decade — that they never really cared to begin with. It’s clear now that all they care about is lining their pockets at the expense of college football fans that wanted so desperately for teams to "settle it on the field."

They don’t even talk about "the field" anymore. They talk about access, revenue and governance. They get power through money and money through access. It really is that simple. 

To borrow a line from the mid-90’s classic movie Airheads, "it could be Pip farting on a snare drum" on the field during those CFP games. All the powers-that-be care about is that there are 22 players on those fields at any given time. It doesn’t matter what colors they are wearing or what they’ve done during the regular season. The new system will already predetermine what teams are actually "worth" consideration for the national title since the Big Ten and SEC — the two most lucrative products in the sport — will likely have multiple tickets punched before toe meets leather in late August when the season gets underway. 

The new format takes college football one step closer to becoming the NFL despite the obvious fact that the structure, desires and needs of 134 different FBS teams vary in a massive way. Plus, the pageantry associated with playing college football is unmatched. The idea of playing on campus in front of your peers can’t be replicated. The rivalries can’t be replicated. The storylines outside of the race for a national title can’t be replicated. 

The money, however, can be replicated. That’s the goal of this new format.

Teams aren’t settling anything on the field anymore. It’s hard to argue that they ever were. However, it was the stated goal of CFP expansion up to this point.

This latest round of CFP expansion is further proof that they just don’t care.