Report: Rose Bowl signs agreement that will allow CFP to expand by 2024

The road to an expanded College Football Playoff appears to be clear. The final hurdle — the Rose Bowl — has reportedly been cleared.

ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported the CFP committee has been informed of the Rose Bowl’s decision to sign an agreement allowing the playoff to expand to 12 teams in 2024 and 2025. The decision clears the way for the CFP to expand as soon as 2024, especially after the committee figured out the issues regarding revenue sharing earlier this month.

Reports said the committee gave the Rose Bowl a hard deadline of Wednesday to make a decision on whether or not it would try and hold up early expansion. Officials want to keep its 5 p.m. ET time slot on New Year’s Day, and that was a point of contention as negotiations rolled on.

In September, the CFP announced its plans to expand from four teams to 12 teams by 2026. The original contract with ESPN ran through 2025, meaning there was some work to do if the committee wanted to expand early. Now, expansion appears to be coming as soon as 2024 after the Rose Bowl’s decision.

Ross Dellenger: College Football Playoff expansion announcement likely to follow Rose Bowl decision

Speaking on the Paul Finebaum Show on Wednesday, Sports Illustrated reporter Ross Dellenger said that a decision from the Rose Bowl was expected to come in by the end of business in the Pacific time zone. When the decision from the Rose Bowl gets to the expansion committee, there will be no more questions to answer and an announcement on College Football Playoff expansion can finally come.

Based on the way Dellenger and Finebaum discussed the machinations, it seems an announcement could be coming in weeks, if not days.

“I think the answer from the Rose Bowl is expected [Wednesday], by the end of the day — maybe the end of their day, which obviously would be 8:00 eastern, 5:00 pacific,” Dellenger said. “I guess there’s not really a drop-dead time, but they’re expecting at some point today to get some kind of determination or decision from the Rose Bowl. And if they’re in, then I think you’ll see an announcement that the playoff will expand in 2024. If they’re out, welp, there’s no early expansion and we expand in ’26.”