Report: White House, presidential committee pushing 24-team College Football Playoff field

The College Football Playoff management committee is meeting this week in Dallas for its annual spring meetings, with the topic of future expansion front and center. But amid the ongoing debate between a 16- or 24-team field, there appears to be a “coalescing” around one particular format, with the backing of the White House.

According to a new report from Yahoo! Sports insider and On3 contributor Ross Dellenger, a 14-person presidential “media” committee formed following President Donald Trump‘s recent college sports roundtable at the White House appears in favor of the larger option for expansion.

“I think it’s accurate to say that there is a coalescing around 24,” a “high-placed stakeholder who is part of both the CFP governance committee and the presidential group” told Yahoo! Sports, per Dellenger.

Of course, the presidential committee has no actual authority to dictate what the Playoff management committee does. But there is plenty of overlap between the two committees.

In fact, the 14-member presidential committee includes the commissioners of the Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, ACC and American conferences, as well as Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua — all members of the CFP management committee. Other members of the White House committee include TV executives from ESPN and FOX; business moguls David Blitzer and Gerry Cardinale; and Boris Epshteyn, the longtime Republican strategist and Trump adviser, according to Dellenger. The committee is also chaired by Texas Tech billionaire booster Cody Campbell.

The push for an expanded 24-team CFP field has taken on renewed vigor recently, especially at last week’s CFP meeting, when three of the four Power Four conference commissioners joined with Bevacqua in expressing their openness to exploring the larger option, according to Dellenger. The lone 16-team holdout? None other than SEC commissioner Greg Sankey.

The debate between the SEC-favored 16-team field and the Big Ten-backed 24-team field has been going strong for nearly two years now, with the two conference commissioners battling it out over the future of the CFP. And based on the power both league commissioners yield on the CFP management committee, any decision on future expansion will require an agreement between the two prominent conferences.

But the fact that the 24-team field now reportedly has the support of much of the CFP committee speaks volumes to how far the Big Ten’s proposal has come over the last year. The 24-team field would completely reshape the college football landscape, including likely ushering in the end of conference championship games.

The larger option would double the current 12-team field, grant four automatic bids to each of the Power Four conferences, and first-round byes to the Top 8 teams as dictated by the final CFP rankings. Detractors of that format, including the SEC, have argued a 24-team option would dilute an already watered-down field as well as devalue the regular season, with the sole drive becoming making the CFP.

Of course, supporters of the 24-team proposal continue to point to the projected financial boon of adding 12 more games to the current playoff system. Those additional games would necessitate a renegotiation of the CFP’s current media rights agreement with ESPN, and potentially include the addition of other TV partners like FOX. ESPN is the CFP’s exclusive media partner through 2032.

“I think 24 solves an enormous amount of problems,” Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks said last week from the Sports Business Journal’s World Congress of Sports, per Dellenger. “You can create (A) more valuable games that the schools need, but (B) one of the big knocks against college football is the first three weeks. It’s actually hard to find great games.”

Despite the broad support for the 24-team model, including from some coaches and administrators within the SEC, no formal decision on expansion is expected at this week’s meeting in Dallas. And while the 2026 Playoffs will once again feature a 12-team field, the CFP committee has a Dec. 1 deadline to make changes for 2027 and beyond.