NBC pursuing slice of 12-team College Football Playoff, per report

NBC is interested in broadcasting part of the 12-team College Football Playoff, according to a report from Front Office Sports.

The media rights for the College Football Playoff run through the 2025 season. ESPN currently has exclusive rights, although first round matchups for the 2024 and 2025 12-team College Football Playoff are also on the market.

NBC has long broadcasted Notre Dame but re-vitalized its broader college football coverage with a recent new deal with the Big Ten.

The College Football Playoff management committee listened to five network presentations last week during its meetings at Big Ten headquarters in Rosemont, Ill., College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock said. Four or five other networks are interested as well.

“Streaming adds another element,” Hancock said. “We are not averse to streaming some of the games. I wouldn’t expect us to stream all of them, but right now nothing’s off the table.”

While the rights for the 2026 College Football Playoff and beyond could very well be split up among multiple companies, the 2024 and 2025 playoffs will not.

Hancock said in early September that either ESPN and/or another network will host the first round games. But there won’t be more than two networks in total that broadcast games for the first two expanded playoffs.

ESPN is broadcasting the quarterfinals, semifinals and College Football Playoff Final. It also has the rights to all the New Year’s Six Bowls.

“There was talk about multiple partners a couple years ago,” Hancock said after meetings in Irving, Texas, in early September. “There was an emphasis for that among one or two commissioners, but I don’t feel that emphasis as much anymore. I think they’d be satisfied with one if that’s how it comes out.”

NBC currently has the rights to every Notre Dame home game and around 22-24 Big Ten games per season. One of the Notre Dame games and eight of the Big Ten games will be broadcast on its streaming platform, Peacock.

ESPN has broadcasted every College Football Playoff game since the first year of the postseason tournament in 2014.

The first round of the 2024 College Football Playoff will be held on college campuses on either Friday, Dec. 20, or Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. The quarterfinals will be held on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day.

The bowl games that will host the quarterfinals are the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl Game and Allstate Sugar Bowl.

The semifinals will be held Thursday, Jan. 9, or Friday, Jan. 10. The national title game will be Monday, Jan. 20.