ESPN has signed a six-year, $7.8 billion deal to remain the main TV partner for the expanding College Football Playoff.
The deal, formally announced by ESPN chief Jimmy Pitaro on Tuesday morning while speaking at Axios' What's Next Summit, will extend ESPN's deal with the CFP through 2032 and pay the tournament $1.3 billion a season. (ESPN subsequently announced full details of its new deal, which was first reported with unofficial sourcing a month ago by The Athletic.)
🚨@ESPN chairman James Pitaro announces that ESPN will retain College Football Playoff TV rights at the #AxiosWNS @sarafischer pic.twitter.com/AcQpqj0EssMarch 19, 2024
ESPN has been the exclusive broadcast partner of the CFP since 2015, when the four-team tournament replaced the Bowl Championship Series as the sole arbiter of college football's highest echelon national championship.
The deal extends ESPN's rights from when the current 12-year deal concludes at the end of the 2025-26 season through the 2031-32 campaign.
Starting with the upcoming 2024-25 season, the CFP will expand from a four-team to a 12-team format, and ESPN's coverage will expand along with it, starting with the final two years of its current contract and continuing through the six-year extension.
Disney-owned ESPN will now have exclusive rights to the entire plus-sized CFP, which includes all rounds of the expanded playoff. ESPN will have exclusive rights to all four first-round games, as well as three quarterfinals and two semifinals matchups that will be added to the network's existing New Years Six bowl package, with legacy bowl games once again doubling as CFP quarterfinal and semifinal matchups.
The initial rounds will be followed by Disney's exclusive presentation of the championship game, which will be simulcasts on ABC starting in 2027.
Here's a comparison of the old format the new one, courtesy of an NCAA primer:
With ESPN's CFP plate growing from three games to 11, the new deal allows the network to sublease games, starting in the amended final two years of the contract.
ESPN and Disney have committed more than $9 billion annually for expensive live-sports TV rights packages, including a separate eight-year, $920 million deal signed with the NCAA in January to show 40 championship games, including the Division I women's national basketball title matchup.
Then there are the really huge contracts, including an NFL rights package, which includes Monday Night Football, that runs $2.7 billion a season, as well as an NBA deal that will soon expand in scope upon pending renewal.
The backdrop, of course, is a pay TV distribution profile, that's 25 million users smaller than it was a decade ago due to video cord-cutting.
🔥🏈 premium sports rights keep going up, even as legacy media ecosystem collapses on itself ESPN paying $1.3 bn per year — 2x prior rights fees including games that previously were not part of CFP $DIS @espn https://t.co/xOmmQLm0raMarch 19, 2024
"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 in a statement. "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."
