The Rose Bowl has signed an agreement that will allow the College Football Playoff to expand to 12 teams for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, two years earlier than its previously planned starting year of 2026.
The Rose Bowl had been the final holdout preventing the Playoff from making the early change. CFP officials reportedly issued an ultimatum to Rose Bowl organizers weeks ago, giving them an end-of-month deadline to agree to the proposal.
Now it looks like the College Football Playoff has all the support it needs to move forward with its lucrative plans for expansion.
Under the new system, the Playoff field be composed of the top six conference champions among the 10 active conferences, plus six wild-card teams, guaranteeing a spot for a Group of Five team. The top four conference champions will get byes into the quarterfinals, while the remaining eight teams will play first-round games at the home stadiums of the higher-seeded teams.
From the quarterfinals on, the games will be played at neutral sites. The New Year’s Six bowls (Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton, Fiesta and Peach) will cycle through hosting quarterfinal and semifinal games, with each bowl getting a semifinal once every three years.
First-round games will reportedly be held in the third week of December. Three quarterfinal games will be played on New Year’s Day, with a fourth on either New Year’s Eve or Jan. 2. The semifinals will follow about one week later, and the championship game will be played at another neutral site the following week.
