The College Football Playoff is expanding from four to 12 teams this year, which means a four-round playoff featuring first round games and quarterfinal games that will be hosted by teams on campus. That means a lot of games and while ESPN owns the rights to broadcast those games, they don’t exactly want to be pushing playoff contests to networks that don’t have the same reach.
As such, they will be sublicensing games to TNT Sports as part of a five-year agreement that starts this year and runs through 2028.
TNT Sports will present two first-round College Football Playoff games during the 2024 and 2025 seasons. In addition to the first-round games, TNT Sports will add two quarterfinal games each year –beginning with the 2026 season through the 2028 season. TNT will be the primary network televising the sublicensed CFP games, among additional TNT Sports distribution platforms.
ESPN will present all other College Football Playoff games on its networks including the annual CFP National Championship Game. ESPN will also continue to manage the sponsorship program for the presentation of the CFP.
The release does not say how things will operate in terms of whether TNT is simply broadcasting the game with ESPN’s crew or if TNT Sports will have their own show and broadcasters, but I’m very much hoping for the latter and for Charles Barkley to be involved somehow. If we’re losing Inside the NBA soon because TNT is not part of the new NBA rights package, the least they can do is give us Chuck’s college football takes — Ernie Johnson would also be firmly dialed on the Playoff as a Georgia fan. Give me some Gone Fishin’ after playoff losses, with Chuck sending Ole Miss to Galveston after a first round defeat.