This is kind of head shaking to me.
This Saturday marks an anniversary of sorts.
On that day three years ago—Jan. 8, 2019—college leaders set off on the long, winding road of seriously exploring an expansion to the College Football Playoff. Within a lavish, downtown San Jose hotel, Mark Keenum, the Mississippi State president and the chair of the CFP’s highest governing body, the Board of Managers, approached executive director Bill Hancock with a directive.
“We’re halfway through the 12-year CFP contract,” he told Hancock. “Let’s examine the Playoff.”
Exactly three years later, college football’s most powerful executives meet Saturday from Indianapolis in a somewhat fractured state, frazzled and frustrated, lacking consensus on a format for expansion.
Three years? Three effing years? An additional $450 million in revenue at stake and this sorry pack of whining babies can’t get their shit together?
“Candidly, given everything that’s been said publicly, looks like we are stuck at four for a while,” Kliavkoff said on 750 The Game on Portland radio Wednesday.
Looks like it. Kliavkoff’s strategy of coming up with an end around for 2026 looks equally promising.
Some are already focused on 2026. With a new deal, comes new rules. While unanimity is required to expand the Playoff before the contract ends, it’s not necessary to create a Playoff format in a new contract.
A “subset” of the CFP management committee could agree on a model and “then others would have the right to join us,” Kliavkoff told reporters last month in Las Vegas.
Hey, good luck with that if those others include the SEC and Notre Dame.
Get The Picture 
All of this over some hurt fee-fees about OU and Texas … I’ll say it louder for those in the back. ESPN isn’t going to pay for it if it isn’t blessed by its most highly valued college property, the SEC, and for the one independent with a voice at the table, Notre Dame.
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A giant game of chicken. Should be fun to watch. Honestly, I would be fine if they try to leave out the SEC and the SECCG becomes the biggest game of the year. No one serious about college football is going to recognize as a true national champion a team that plays in some cockamamie playoff that doesn’t include at a minimum the SEC champion.
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Sankey will get behind it only when ESPN says we’re good. If ESPN says we’ll write a big enough check for 8 to make Sankey ok, he’ll go along even if that leaves Notre Dame in the cold. I think ESPN wants 12 (the Sankey proposal), so they are willing to stand with their premier property to get 12.
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This means there will be more conference expansion prior to 2026.
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Looks like an academic committee if ever I saw one.
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Nothing happens until ESPN gets their pound of flesh.
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This is starting to remind me of how the NCAA had nearly a decade to come up with a coherent defense to its position on the player-competition issue, but still wound up looking flat-footed and asinine in front of the NCAA. What I can’t understand is why this country continues to be surprised when the rich and powerful turn out to be just as dim and short-sighted as the average schlub.
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Some how, some way Notre Dame and/or the Rose Bowl will screw up
any plans that don’t please them. I really don’t understand where their power
come from in today’s game.
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Catholic, Midwest and West Coast eyeballs…very advertiser rich targets.
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The only way the Rose Bowl makes this a problem will be if they decide to say we play on NYD or we aren’t going to be a part.
I don’t think ND is going to be able to scuttle the entire thing without the SEC.
Until the proposal comes out with the game schedule laid out, it’s impossible to tell where the arrows will come from. I’m guessing the CFP suits want to keep the championship game going to the highest bidder rather than rotating through a set of sites. The NY6 will rotate their hosting of games by hosting a semifinal 1 of every 3 years the 2nd weekend in January and a quarterfinal the other 2 years in NYE/NYD. The championship game is played on Monday night of the 3rd weekend. If they go 12, the play-in games are the 2nd weekend in December.
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Keenum is an Ag Engineer. Kliavkoff is an entertainment marketing expert. I know who the smarter guy in the room is when it comes to TV contracts, but I don’t trust either.
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Ag Econ! Don’t you blaspheme about Ag Engineers like that!
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Stick to tractors, not sports. 😜
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4 is a good stuck to be.
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