Report: Stunning New College Football Playoff Proposal Heavily Skews Payouts to SEC, Big Ten
The sport’s two most powerful conferences appear poised to leverage their financial might.
With Oklahoma, Texas, Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington set to fan out between the SEC and Big Ten next season, the supremacy of those two conferences seems assured—for better or for worse.
Soon, the two leagues may have the College Football Playoff revenue share to prove it.
A new CFP proposal would give the SEC and Big Ten an astoundingly large slice of the playoff money pie, according to a Friday morning report from Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports.
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Per Dellenger, the proposal would give the SEC and Big Ten 58% of the base revenue distribution from an expanded 14-team College Football Playoff—a stark departure from previous protocol, where 80% of the CFP’s revenue was divided relatively equally among the Power 5 conferences.
“The figure would greatly exceed the ACC and Big 12’s combined distribution number, which is expected to be around 31%,” Dellenger wrote.
All told, Dellenger estimated potential SEC payouts per school at $23 million, Big Ten payouts at $21 million, ACC payouts at $13.7 million, Big 12 payouts at $12.3 million, and Group of Five payouts at $2 million in this new format proposal.
A number of 14-team formats have been proposed, including one reported iteration that would grant the Big Ten and SEC three automatic qualifiers each, with the ACC and Big 12 receiving two and the highest-ranked Group of 5 program landing one. This format would also have three at-large bids. That is just one of the various formats being discussed, per Dellenger.
The College Football Playoff is set to undergo its first expansion, from four teams to 12, in 2024–25.
While much remains up in the air with regard to college football’s postseason future, it appears clear that the sport’s rich only stand to grow richer.