College Football Playoff

The College Football Playoff is the postseason event that determines the national champion for the Football Bowl Subdivision. The playoff was created to preserve the excitement and significance of college football’s unique regular season where every game counts. The postseason structure creates an exciting four-team playoff that upholds the best regular season in sports and protects America’s rich bowl tradition.

The College Football Playoff is administered by the FBS conferences and the University of Notre Dame which are members of CFP Administration, LLC. The conferences manage the College Football Playoff National Championship and identify certain policies for the bowl games that host the Playoff Semifinals. To learn more about the governance of the playoff, click here.

The format of the College Football Playoff is simple: the four best teams, two semifinals played in bowl games and a national championship game played in a different city every year, always on a Monday night.

The four teams that go to the College Football Playoff are determined by the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. The selection committee chooses the four teams for the playoff based on strength of schedule, head-to-head results against common opponents, championships won and other factors. For more information on the selection committee, as well as individual bios, click here.

No team automatically qualifies. Every FBS team has equal access to the playoff based on its performance.

The 10 conferences and Notre Dame unanimously agreed to the four-team format in 2012. The playoff preserves the importance and excitement of the regular season, which is the most compelling in sports. It also maintains the tradition of bowl games, which are unique to the American sports culture. The agreement for the four-team playoff extends for 12 years, through the 2025 regular season and 2026 national championship game.

To view future sites and schedules, click here.

College Football Playoff Semifinal games rotate among the Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl Game, Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl.

In 2023, the national championship game will be played at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California. To learn more, click here.

The next four communities to host the College Football Playoff National Championship will be Los Angeles in 2023, Houston in 2024, Atlanta in 2025 and Miami in 2026. To learn more, click here.

The site of the College Football Playoff National Championship is determined through a negotiation process, much like the Super Bowl location. Any city that demonstrates necessary facilities, transportation and other factors can be considered to host the College Football Playoff National Championship.

In 2012, it was announced that ESPN acquired the rights to broadcast all College Football Playoff games, as well as selected other games, through the 2026 national championship game.

All FBS conferences and independent institutions receive revenue from the College Football Playoff under the revenue-distribution plan adopted unanimously by the board of managers. For full details on revenue distribution, please click here.