College Football Playoffs expand to 24 teams in 2027

The Southeastern Conference will get more room in the College Football Playoff and give up the December game it built more than three decades ago.

The playoff will double from 12 to 24 teams beginning with the 2027 season, ending championship games in the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12, the Associated Press and ESPN reported Monday. ESPN’s Heather Dinich reported that the network and the CFP reached a five-year agreement worth nearly $1.7 billion to carry the expanded tournament.

For the SEC, the trade puts more of its teams in position to play for a national championship while taking away the game that settled its own. The league staged its first championship game in 1992 at Birmingham’s Legion Field, where Alabama beat Florida 28-21. Atlanta has hosted every edition since 1994, first at the Georgia Dome and then at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

This year’s SEC championship is still scheduled for Dec. 5 in Atlanta, and this season’s playoff will still have 12 teams. In 2023, the SEC and its Atlanta partners announced a hosting agreement through at least 2031. The reports on expansion did not say how the end of the game would affect that agreement.

The bigger bracket gives teams such as last year’s Texas a clearer path. The Longhorns went 9-3 and finished No. 13 in the selection committee’s final rankings, outside the 12-team field. A team in that position could now be in line to host a playoff game. Under the reported format, the top eight seeds get first-round byes and host second-round games. Seeds 9 through 16 host in the opening round.

That changes what an SEC contender is playing for late in the season. A second or third loss could still leave a team in the playoff race, while a win in a November rivalry game could be the difference between opening at home and going on the road. For Georgia, that means a December playoff game in Athens is possible even in a year when the Bulldogs finish behind several teams in the SEC standings.

The SEC had already moved to nine conference games beginning this season and requires each school to schedule an additional game against an ACC, Big Ten or Big 12 opponent or Notre Dame. The AP reported that the expanded playoff will require Power Four teams to play at least 10 games against those leagues or Notre Dame, putting the rest of the Power Four on a similar scheduling standard. How the SEC will determine its champion without a title game remains an open question.

Atlanta will still have a place in the postseason. The first two playoff rounds will be played on campuses, with bowls hosting the quarterfinals and semifinals. Under the CFP’s published schedule, the Peach Bowl will host a quarterfinal on Jan. 1, 2028. Atlanta’s next playoff game will carry national title stakes, even as the city prepares to lose the game that crowned an SEC champion.