Every year, the college football playoffs are one of the most important and enticing events in the sports world. Winning the national championship is something every player, team, coach, and fan wants, as that team gets cemented in the history books forever.

For the last 10 years, it has been a four team playoff format, taking the consensus top four teams and making them play for the national championship. Michigan will be the last national championship from the four team playoff format, as they won this years national championship this January, taking down Washington. In 2024 though, we will see some major changes. The NCAA is implementing a new 12 team format for next year’s playoff and beyond. 

For some schools, this is the best news they could hear as they have more opportunity to compete for a national championship. Some schools that have never made the playoffs before, like Penn State, a perennial top ranked team, have never made an appearance in the college football playoffs, they could now get the opportunity to compete as a higher or lower seed. Small schools such as Liberty, Tulane, SMU, and even James Madison, who have contended for a top 25 spot, will now feel a better chance of competing for national championship honors.

This change is great for college football. Smaller, lesser known teams will be competing in the playoffs every year, as there will be six automatic bids for the highest-seeded conference winners. To put that into perspective for next year, there would be a winner from the Big10, Big 12, ACC, SEC, and with the demolition of the Pac12, possibly a winner from Conference USA and the A10, or a winner of a different, smaller conference.

With the opportunity for smaller teams and lower-seeded teams to get in, the top four teams will still receive a first round bye for their success during the regular season. There will then be another six teams that get a chance to play. 

For example, in 2023 the 12 teams who would have made the playoffs under a 12-team structure were Michigan, Washington, Texas, Alabama, Florida State, Georgia, Oregon, Missouri, Ohio State, Mississippi, SMU, and Liberty. This would have created a lot of great matchups and most likely a much higher viewer rate.

One important thing about this change is that many teams will have to play an extra game on their way to a championship. This year, Michigan played 15 games en route to a national championship — next year, teams will have to play 16 or even 17 games in order to win the national championship, with the first and quarterfinal rounds being added.

These added games will be great for college football fans, as there will be more games to watch. But it will be even better for TV providers and big channels as they will have more opportunities to broadcast big, important college football games. These extra playoff games will likely generate a lot more money than the regular bowl games like in the past. Playing in the playoffs will give teams more incentive to win, so they will try much harder to win.

Unlike the past, when many popular players opted out of meaningless bowl games to prepare for the draft, or even transfer, many more of the best players will now have a reason to stay and compete for a national championship.