Bad newsSEC Ends Its Title Game After 35 Years as ESPN Takes 23 Playoff Games
The Southeastern Conference will stage its last championship game on 5 December as the College Football Playoff grows to 24 teams. ESPN keeps every game under a five-year deal whose terms the CFP did not disclose.
Read the good side of this story
College Football Playoff Opens 24 Spots and 16 Campus Games From 2027
The Southeastern Conference will play its last championship game on 5 December, after 35 editions. The SEC announced on 9 November that the Atlanta game would be the final one, a decision it says coincides with the College Football Playoff (CFP) growing to 24 teams in 2027-28. The same day the CFP unanimously approved the expansion and a new rights deal with ESPN.
The money nobody printed
The CFP did not disclose financial terms. ESPN’s Heather Dinich reported a five-year deal worth .7 billion, according to Yahoo Sports, so that figure comes from ESPN’s own reporter rather than from the CFP. ESPN becomes the exclusive worldwide rights holder for all 23 games through 2031-32, and may sublicense some.
The CFP did not confirm that number, and no source we can cite shows what each conference or school will receive from it. ESPN has been the exclusive home of the playoff since its start in 2015, according to the CFP, so there is no public rival offer to compare it with.
More games, same bodies
The format grows from 11 games to 23. A champion that starts in the first round will play five games before the title, up from four today, and the top eight seeds play four after a bye. The CFP’s fact sheet gives no figure for how many games players now face in total. It does say there will always be two open weeks in the regular season and that the playoff starts the first full week of December.
| 12-team format (2026-27) | 24-team format (2027-28 to 2031-32) | |
|---|---|---|
| Playoff games | 11 | 23 |
| Games on a campus | 4 | 16 |
| Seeds with a first-round bye | 4 | 8 |
| Most games a champion plays | 4 | 5 |
| At-large places | 7 | 19 |
| Table: GoodBad. Data from the CFP format fact sheet, 9 November 2026. Game counts are our arithmetic from the bracket. |
What gets cut
The game began on 5 December 1992 at Legion Field in Birmingham, where Alabama beat Florida 28-21. It moved to Atlanta in 1994, spent 23 consecutive years at the Georgia Dome and has been at Mercedes-Benz Stadium since 2017, the SEC says.
The SEC says its game helped launch 14 teams to a national championship over 34 editions. Yahoo Sports, citing ESPN’s report, says the expansion eliminates championship games in the four biggest conferences. The CFP says that decision rests with each conference, so only the SEC has confirmed a closure so far.
The calendar also bends around the television schedule. Heisman Trophy weekend moves a week earlier, to 3 to 5 December 2027, and the final regular-season games fall on 27 November. “Week 0” disappears from the 2027 season, according to the Yahoo report.
Winners and who is left
Nineteen at-large places and one slot for the best team from a smaller conference make the field bigger. The CFP adds scheduling standards under which a win over more than one FCS opponent earns no credit. Programs outside the biggest four conferences still depend on a single reserved place and the committee’s ranking.
Programming plans and dates, including Selection Day, are still to come. This year’s playoff stays at 12 teams.
