ESPN Officially Locks Up College Football Playoff Broadcast Rights Until 2032 Ahead of Probable Expansion to 14 Teams
The deal will see ESPN retain CFP rights all the way through the 2031-32 season.
A twisting, turning saga that saw ESPN’s own reporting refuted by College Football Playoff officials at one point is now ending. ESPN and the CFP have officially agreed to an extension of their broadcast rights agreement through the 2031-32 season, allowing the worldwide leader in sports to retain exclusive control over CFP broadcasts even as the playoffs are set for a huge expansion.
- The CFP will expand to 12 teams in 2024, and potentially again to 14 teams in 2026.
- ESPN’s deal with the CFP allows it to sublicense games to other broadcasters.
- Starting in 2026, ABC will air the CFP National Championship game alongside the traditional Megacast of the game.
ESPN first reported it had agreed to a new deal with the CFP way back in January, but the report was followed by an immediate denial by CFP officials, who said important members of various CFP boards and committees had not even seen a draft agreement, much less signed off on anything yet.
Now the deal appears to be official, however. As per the terms of the agreement, ESPN will retain exclusive broadcast rights for CFP games for the next eight seasons in total. The CFP is due to expand to 12 teams starting this fall, but recent reporting from ESPN indicates the commission is poised to expand the playoff to 14 teams starting in the 2026-27 season.
Per the terms of the deal, ESPN has the right to begin sublicensing a “select” number of games to other outlets. Fox was nipping at ESPN’s heels during the negotiations for CFP games, so it’s likely that it will be calling ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro about a sublicensing agreement in the near future. Previous reporting indicated that ESPN was allowed to sublicense as many as five of the 11 total CFP games in a 12-game format every year, and the company’s press release about the new deal likely kept its terminology vague in case the further expansion to 14 teams becomes a reality.
“ESPN has worked very closely with the College Football Playoff over the past decade to build one of the most prominent events in American sports,” Pitaro said of the new deal. “We look forward to enhancing our valued relationship over the next two years, and then continuing it for six more as we embark on this new, expanded playoff era. This agreement further solidifies ESPN as the home of college football, as well as the destination for the vast majority of major college championships for the next eight years.”
Will CFP Have an Expanded Streaming Presence with New Deal?
The new licensing agreement between the CFP and ESPN details that starting in the 2026-27 season, the National Championship game will air on ABC, in addition to ESPN’s traditional Megacast that allows viewers to watch the game via different alternate broadcasts and camera angles on ESPN2, ESPNEWS and other channels. However, there was no mention of an expansion to the sports channel’s only current streaming service ESPN+.
But ESPN+ will not be ESPN’s only streaming platform for much longer. In the fall of 2024, ESPN intends to launch a joint venture sports streaming virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) service with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery. This streamer will have full livestreams of ESPN, ESPN2, and more networks, so it will offer the full CFP National Championship Megacast on any channel the viewer could want to see. When the CFP National Championship reverts to ABC in 2026-27, the JV streamer will carry it as well.
On Wednesday, a new report surfaced which indicates that ESPN is launching another streaming service by fall of 2025. This will be the long-awaited standalone ESPN service, which will feature all sports content available on linear ESPN channels without a cable subscription. Presumably, fans will be able to watch CFP games on this service too, and the network could decide to make some of those games streaming exclusives if it chooses.
So while CFP games may not be headed to ESPN+ any time soon, they will still be expanding their streaming presence once the JV platform and ESPN’s new standalone service hit the market. That will mark the first time that customers can watch CFP games outside the cable bundle, and it will mean more choices for fans as major sporting events continue to transition to digital spaces.
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