The Super Bowl is here, but perhaps not for long. In a few years, it could be there — it could be next Sunday.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has expressed interest in adding an 18th game to the schedule and pushing the postseason back one week, with the Super Bowl moving to the Sunday of Presidents Day weekend.
That’s potentially problematic for the College Football Playoff, which makes it worrisome for the sport in general.
Extending the CFP to 12 teams achieved the twin goals of making the regular season more meaningful to more teams and providing playoff access to schools and regions that were often excluded from the four-team event.
But two additional rounds of play turned the CFP into a month-long event that began Dec. 20 and concluded Jan. 20.
What’s more, the semifinals were placed on a nondescript Thursday and Friday; there were two rounds of NFL playoffs between the CFP semifinals and title game; and the championship was played on a Monday that doubled as a national holiday (MLK Day) and tripled as Inauguration Day.
Ohio State’s victory over Notre Dame drew 22.1 million viewers — a solid number, sure, but not close to what the matchup could draw with a better TV window. (The Michigan-Washington showdown in 2024, played two weeks earlier, drew 25 million viewers.)
If the NFL moves to an 18-game season upon negotiating a new media contract at the end of the decade, the January competition calendar will become vastly more challenging for the CFP.
The NFL’s regular season wouldn’t end until the second Sunday, with the wild card round (six games over three days) on the third weekend and the divisional round (four games over two days) on the fourth.
In fact, if the NFL simply moved its current TV schedule back one week to accommodate the 18th game, the wild card matchup played on Monday night would start at the same time, and on the same network (ESPN), as the CFP championship game.
It all suggests a revamped calendar in which the NFL sucks up all the media oxygen and CFP games are relegated to the nooks and crannies of the TV schedule that limit audience.
What should the sport do with its marquee event?
It has been three weeks since the conference commissioners who run the CFP gathered in Atlanta to begin discussing format changes that could be implemented next season but, more likely, will take effect in 2026.
While the number of teams (12 or 14) and the allocation of byes (to conference champions or the highest-ranked teams) are expected to receive significant attention, the committee must address the calendar under the presumption the NFL eventually adds an 18th game.
Option No. 1: Keep the CFP championship in its current window and negotiate with its media partner, ESPN, and the NFL to find a workaround to the potential scheduling conflict with the wild card game on the same night. (That could mean moving the CFP title game to Tuesday.)
Option No. 2: Stage the CFP championship the weekend before the Super Bowl, when there’s no NFL to watch and college football’s marquee event could have its pick of day and time, plus a week of hype unmatched in the sport’s history.
Skeptics point to the competition calendar already being too long, with a regular season that begins in late August. Does the sport really want its championship played in early February?
Also, pushing the title game into the empty window before the Super Bowl seemingly would require moving the semifinals back, as well. There would be so much time between rounds, the CFP would be easily forgotten by mainstream fans.
Option No. 3: Move the CFP championship up by one week to avoid getting swept away by the heart of the NFL playoffs.
Better yet, move the whole shebang up several weeks and stage the championship at the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1 every year.
This is the best solution, by far, but it carries enormous complexities — specifically, it would require the sport to untether itself from the New Year’s games.
The Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, Cotton, Orange and Peach Bowls could not reasonably serve as rotating hosts to the quarterfinals on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 if the championship game moved up one week, much less two.
Would bowl officials agree to pre-Christmas kickoffs? Unlikely. So the CFP would have to restructure in a manner that disconnects its quarterfinal and semifinal rounds from the major bowls.
From a competitive standpoint, that should not be a problem: Play every round on the campus of the higher seed, just like the NFL, with the championship at a neutral site (the Rose Bowl). That would create spectacular theatre and next-level environments on campus.
Does the CFP have the willpower to break free of its longstanding relationships with the New Year’s bowls? Probably not.
There are no easy options, not for a sport that is both deeply rooted in tradition and desperate for every last TV dollar.
But this much is clear: The NFL is an enormous problem for the CFP that could get much worse in years to come.
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