While we’re still a bit of time away from the College Football Playoff’s next round of media rights deals, rumors continue to circle about interested parties and the structure of the agreements covering the expanded Playoff.
Per Front Office Sports, exclusivity for the national championship game might not be on the table for bidders, with the game cycling between partners.
Just about every major sports media company has been linked to the expanded Playoff, including incumbent ESPN, Fox, NBC, Warner Bros. Discovery, and streaming companies Apple and Amazon. The latter three companies do not air any college football games, losing out on every package to which they’ve been linked.
Cycling the national championship between broadcast partners, as the NFL does with the Super Bowl, makes sense for the Playoff. Then again, it also makes sense for the championship to remain exclusive with one media partner willing to crack open its wallet.
This is still all very speculative, and the Playoff still has a multi-billion media rights deal with ESPN running through 2025. The huge investments made in Big Ten rights by Fox and NBC likely would push them to spend further and nab rights to Playoff games, and the parties without any college football rights will be looking at the Playoff as their last shot at acquiring marquee college football rights before the next cycle of media rights deals.
