Report: ESPN could pull $7.8 billion media rights offer if College Football Playoff doesn't resolve 12-team format

However surprising the (lack of a) move might be, it’s apparently possible that the reported $7.8 billion media rights deal for ESPN to broadcast the College Football Playoff doesn’t get consummated, according to Puck News’ John Ourand. In a recent newsletter, Ourand reported that the deal has yet to be signed.

While the two sides are apparently in agreement on the deal, ESPN could apparently chose to walk in coming months if the College Football Playoff management doesn’t “doesn’t get it’s act together,” Ourand wrote. The most important issue is that the CFP hasn’t formalized and approved the 12-team playoff structure with the Pac-12’s dissolution.

“This process has only gotten more complicated as the Pac-12 haws essentially become the Pac-2,” Ourand said in the newsletter, “with only poor Washington State and Oregon State left behind, and the Big Ten and SEC continually levitating above the NCAA to become their own veritable semiprofessional leagues. The playoff committee needs to figure out how to placate the conferences, ensure that the larger format is more inclusive, and allow everyone (the conferences, the schools, and their broadcast partner, chief among them) to make enough money so that they play nice — at least for now.”

ESPN is apparently looking to prioritize a number of other sports properties to broadcast, including the NBA and UFC, meaning the CFP can’t afford to sit idly, Ourand added.

More on the ESPN-CFP media rights deal

By the terms of the new deal, the network will host the 12-team playoff through the 2031-32 season, according to a report from The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand that broke the news of the deal.

“The full contract’s completion is still contingent on CFP leaders finalizing details of the expanded format in the wake of the implosion of the Pac-12,” Marchand said. “The CFP’s management committee and board of managers have meetings scheduled for next week and continue to work through the complicated process of settling their outstanding issues.

“The ESPN deal will not be ratified until the commissioners and presidents vote on the structure and financials of the expanded CFP. ESPN senior vice president of communication Josh Krulewitz and College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock both declined comment.”

As far as control of all playoff games, it get’s really interesting after the final two years of the current deal for ESPN and the playoff.

“Over the final two years of its current agreement, ESPN holds the rights to the new set of first-round games held at on-campus site, in addition to the quarterfinals, semifinals and championship games,” Marchand said. “It is not yet known what the fee of the first-round games will be for the next two seasons. The quarterfinals will be played at current New Year’s Six bowls, whose rights were already owned by ESPN.”