The College Football Playoff has already unveiled what the schedule will look like when the tournament expands to 12 teams next year, and NFL executives are reportedly hoping a change can be made.
With the College Football Playoff featuring 12 teams next season, there will now be four rounds in total. The four highest-ranked conference champions will be the top four seeds and receive a first-round bye. that leaves four games to be played in the opening round.
As it currently stands, one of those opening-round games is scheduled to be played on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. The other three games will be played the following day on Saturday, Dec. 21.
According to John Ourand of Puck News, the NFL is hoping the College Football Playoff will move at least one of those three Saturday opening-round games to Friday. That will be the portion of the NFL’s schedule where Saturday games are played, and the league would rather not compete with the CFP for viewers if it can be avoided.
Ourand said the NFL would ideally like to keep that Saturday clear of college games, but executives know that is unlikely. The NFL’s “new tactic” is to try to convince the CFP to move one game so they have two games on Friday and two games on Saturday.
The question for the CFP is whether the pros of not having to compete with the NFL outweigh the cons of scheduling two games on a Friday. If the CFP does move one game, it would be possible for the NFL and the CFP to schedule their three combined Saturday games without much overlap. If there are four games in total that day, overlap will be inevitable.
Obviously, the interests of the CFP and NFL are aligned. Both want as many viewers as possible, which is why they have done their best to avoid one another in the past. It would not be a surprise if a change is made either this year or in the second year of the 12-team playoff.
H/T Awful Announcing
