The playoffs aren’t going to expand anytime soon, according to college football execs

Expanding the College Football Playoff isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Industry executives seem pleased with how the four-team setup has gone since it formed in 2014. Going to a six- or eight-team field simply doesn’t make sense to them. The four-team playoff has built-in drama every year with at least one Power Five school being left out, makes regular-season games must-see and has managed to keep bowl games relevant.

“The acceptance of the format and the selection process is so high that I just don’t see it happening,” Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said last week at a Dallas Influencers in Sports and Entertainment (DISE) luncheon.

“The fact is at a purely practical level ESPN loves having five autonomy conferences chasing after four seats, and I think the drama of having somebody like a Central Florida that goes through the season last year undefeated and vies for a spot in the playoff is really good. The narrative around the game is great.

“I wouldn’t say we’ll never go to it, but I’d be very surprised if we gave it any serious consideration until very close to the end of this current 12-year contract [that expires in 2026]. We haven’t had any conversations about expanding the field so far. This is a terrific enterprise and I just think we need to be really careful before we tamper with it.”

The CFP has been a hit with fans compared to the confusing, computer-driven BCS era. Gina Lehe, the CFP senior director of communications and branding, told the group that it has received an 80 percent approval rating year over year since announcing the playoff format.

Some might argue that an expanded playoff would push the approval rating into the 90s. But, in Lehe and the rest of the panel’s minds, adding more teams to the mix would dilute the brand in the long run.

The CFP likes how coveted those spots are and how much conversation and debate the process generates.

Plus, more teams means more games for student athletes (thus more injury risks). The expanded playoffs could have a negative impact on the number of fans who are able to travel to the games, too.

“It’s easy for fans and often media to go out and talk and be on social media – we need eight. We need 16,” Lehe said. “But these items that we’re talking about today [such as making football safer] are often not taken into account when you throw stuff like that on the wall.”

Another factor in the playoff discussion is bowl games. College football likes the bowl season and an expanded playoff makes them more irrelevant.

“We’ve been part of the landscape of postseason college football for over 100 years,” said Michael Konradi, the Cotton Bowl’s chief marketing officer. “So you add another level of the playoffs, do the bowls become the NIT? I certainly hope not.

“One of the things that make college football unique is the bowl system. Why do we have to be like everybody else?”

Protecting the bowl system is something that ranked as a priority in developing the CFP, Bowlsby said. So far, they have been pleased with the results.

The other two priorities were encouraging schools to play higher-profile non-conference games in September and keeping conference play meaningful in October and November.

With only four teams, every school understands the importance of having a signature non-conference win on their resume when the committee is making their decisions on the final four teams. And, of course, every conference game carries significance.

“I think it’s hard to argue that the regular season in college football in October and November isn’t just the best there is in any sport,” Bowlsby said. “I think right now we’ve achieved success in all three of those areas and college football is better for it. We need to be slow to evolve and that doesn’t mean [expanding the playoffs] won’t ever come up, but I don’t think it was going to come up anytime soon.”