College Football Playoff

College Football Playoff
Official logo[1]
In operation	beginning in 2014
Preceded by	BCS (1998–2013) Bowl Alliance (1995–97) Bowl Coalition (1992–94)
Number of playoff games	3 per season
Television partner(s)	ESPN (2014–2025)
Executive director	Bill Hancock
Website	collegefootballplayoff.com

The College Football Playoff (CFP) is the system in American college football that will determine a national champion for the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), beginning in the 2014 season.^[2] Under the playoff, four teams will play in two semifinal games, with the winners advancing to the new College Football Championship Game.^[3] Six bowl games — the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and Chick-fil-A Bowl — will rotate as hosts for the semifinal games. The rotation is set on a three-year cycle with the following pairings: Rose and Sugar, then Orange and Cotton, and then Fiesta and Chick-fil-A. The semifinals, plus the other four top-tier bowls not hosting semifinals, will be marketed as the "New Year's Six",^[4] with three bowls played daily, typically on consecutive days that include New Year's Day.^[3]

The championship game will be played on the first Monday that is six or more days after the semifinals.^[5] The game's venue will be selected based on bids submitted by cities, similar to the Super Bowl or Final Four, with AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas hosting the first title game on January 12, 2015.^[6] The winner will be awarded a new trophy instead of the AFCA "crystal football", which has been given to the coaching group's national champion selection since 1986; officials wanted a new trophy that was unconnected with the previous championship system.^[7]

Unlike college football's title system used from 1998 to 2013, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), the new format will not use computer rankings or polls to select the participants. Rather, a committee of 13 people will select and seed the teams.^[8] The playoff system will be the first to determine the top-level NCAA football championship by a bracket competition. The new format is known as a Plus-One system, an idea which became popular as an improvement to the BCS after the 2003 and 2004 seasons ended in controversy.^[9][10]

The playoff system will be in place through at least the 2025 season per a contract with ESPN, which owns the rights to broadcast all games.^[11] The network reportedly paid $7.3 billion overall for the 12-year TV rights.^[12]

Playoff format

The College Football Playoff will use a four-team bracket to determine the champion. The selection committee will seed the top four teams and select which semifinal bowl game gets each matchup.

Playoff rotation

These bowl games and venues will host College Football Playoff semifinal and championship games:^[2]

Selection committee

The first College Football Playoff selection committee was announced on October 16, 2013. The group consists of 13 members who will generally serve three-year terms, although some initial selections will serve terms both shorter and longer than three years "to achieve a rotation" of members.^[13][14]

The inaugural members of the selection committee will be:^[13][15]

The selections include one current athletic director from each of the five so-called "power" conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC).^[17] Others selected are former coaches, players, athletic directors, and administrators, which also includes a retired member of the media, Steve Wieberg.^[18] The goal was for the panel to consist proportionally of current athletic directors, former coaches, and a third group of other voters,^[17] excluding current conference commissioners, coaches, and media members.^[19] During the selection process, organizers said they wanted the committee to be geographically balanced.^[20] Conference commissioners submitted lists totaling more than 100 names from which to select the final committee members.^[21][22]

The committee will pick four teams for the playoff and seed them, plus select the pairings in the other four bowl games.^[18] The committee will reportedly meet in person three to five times during the season (and up to 10 times a year), releasing updated rankings after each meeting.^[22] It likely will not release weekly standings, as the BCS did.^[18] Committee members will not make their ballots public, and the committee's voting method will use multiple ballots, similar to the NCAA basketball tournament selection process.^[23] A current athletic director will leave the room during discussion of his team, and will be prevented from voting for it; such an AD will, however, remain in the room while teams from the same conference were being discussed.^[17] Among the factors that the committee will weigh are strength of schedule, conference championships, team records, and head-to-head results,^[5] plus other considerations such as injuries and weather.^[23] Unlike the BCS system, the AP Poll, Coaches' Poll, Harris poll, and computer rankings will not be used to make the selections.^[8][17]

Bowl selections

The four-team bracket will pit the No. 1-ranked team against No. 4 and No. 2 vs. No. 3. The selection committee will seed the two semifinal games to prevent the top two seeds from playing in a "road" environment. There will be no limits on the number of teams per conference, a change from previous BCS rules.^[3] However, some non-semifinal bowl selections will be based on conference tie-ins, similarly to the BCS's automatic qualifier berths.^[24] A spot is also guaranteed for a team from a mid-major conference.^[5]

In years when the bowls are not part of the playoff bracket, the highest-ranked non-playoff teams from the following conferences or groups will be selected as follows:^[25]

• Rose Bowl — Big Ten #1 vs. Pac-12 #1
• Sugar Bowl — SEC #1 vs. Big 12 #1
• Orange Bowl — ACC #1 vs. SEC #2, Big Ten #2, or Notre Dame
• Chick-fil-A Bowl — at-large or "Group of Five"
• Cotton Bowl — at-large or "Group of Five"
• Fiesta Bowl — at-large or "Group of Five"

Additional selection criteria:

• The highest-ranked champion from the so-called "Group of Five" mid-major conferences (American Athletic Conference, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt) is guaranteed a berth if the group's top team is not in the playoff.^[25]

• The remaining five at-large bids will be determined by committee rankings.^[25]

• If the Big Ten or SEC champion is available for a non-playoff bowl in a year when the Rose and Sugar Bowls are hosting semifinals, that team will appear in either the Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, or Chick-fil-A Bowl, but not the Orange Bowl.^[25]

• In the Orange Bowl, the SEC and Big Ten are guaranteed at least three appearances during the eight non-playoff years, while Notre Dame can only appear a maximum of twice.^[26]

• In non-playoff years, if the Orange Bowl matchup creates a regular-season rematch for the ACC representative, the bowl may choose to "skip over" the prescribed opponent from the SEC/Big Ten/Notre Dame group and select the next highest-ranked team from the group. The team that was rejected would be placed in one of the three at-large bowls, if it meets ranking standards.^[27]

Championship game

Cities around the country submit hosting bids for each year's championship game and the playoff group's leaders make a hosting selection from those bids, in a similar fashion to other large sporting events, such as the Super Bowl or Final Four. Officials say the championship game will be held in a different city each year, and that bids must propose host stadiums with a capacity of at least 65,000 spectators.^[28] Under the system, cities cannot host both a semifinal game and the title game in the same year.^[29] AT&T Stadium, an NFL stadium in Arlington, Texas, was chosen to host the first game in January 2015.^[6]

Four cities submitted bids for the 2016 game: Glendale (University of Phoenix Stadium), Jacksonville (EverBank Field), New Orleans (Mercedes-Benz Superdome), and Tampa (Raymond James Stadium); and six metropolitan areas vied for the 2017 game: the San Francisco Bay Area (Levi's Stadium), Minneapolis (Vikings Stadium), San Antonio (Alamodome), Miami (Sun Life Stadium), Jacksonville, and Tampa.^[28][30] Host selections were announced in December 2013 with Glendale (University of Phoenix Stadium) being awarded the 2016 title game and Tampa (Raymond James Stadium) winning the bid for 2017.

Revenue

In 2012, ESPN reportedly paid about $7.3 billion over 12 years for broadcasting rights to all seven games, an average of about $608 million per year. That includes $215 million per year which was already committed to the Rose, Sugar and Orange bowls,^[12] plus $470–475 million annually for the rest of the playoff package.^[31] By comparison, the most recent contract with the BCS had paid almost $2 billion over four years — $495 million per year for five games.^[12]

In dividing the revenue, more money will be paid out to the conferences whose teams qualify for the semifinals or the other four bowl games.^[32] Reports say the money will be divided based on several criteria such as "on-field success, teams' expenses, marketplace factors and academic performance of student-athletes."^[33] Teams that fall below a certain Academic Progress Rate threshold will be penalized, receiving less revenue.^[32]

In non-semifinal years, the Rose Bowl's TV revenue will be split between the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences; likewise, the Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl revenue will be divided between its participant conferences. When those bowls are semifinal games, the money will be distributed by the playoff system to all FBS conferences.^[12] ESPN has paid about $80 million a year each for the Rose and Sugar bowls over 12 years. The Orange Bowl deal is worth $55 million per year.^[34]

As part of their playoff contracts, the six bowl sites cannot hold any other postseason college football games at their stadiums.^[35]

Leadership

Previous BCS commissioner Bill Hancock is the executive director of the playoff organization,^[36] with former ACC Senior Associate Commissioner Michael Kelly as COO.^[37] Like the BCS, the playoff system's management committee^[38] consists of the conference commissioners from the 10 FBS conferences^[39] and Notre Dame's athletic director.^[21] The playoff system's headquarters is in Irving, Texas.^[36]

See also

• College football playoff debate
• Plus-One system
• Bowl Championship Series
• College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS
• Mythical National Championship
• List of college bowl games

References

External links

• Official website