If The CFP Expands, What Happens To Army-Navy And Conference Title Games?

This week is crucial for College Football Playoff expansion talks. The CFP’s 30-day exclusive negotiating window with ESPN is slated to end on Friday. Could that mean we get a decision on moving to a 24-team playoff? Perhaps. But we’ll just have to see how this all plays out. More likely, though not certain, the CFP will open up to bidders beyond ESPN as it looks to make the financials work to expand beyond the current 12-team format, which expanded from a four-team playoff starting in the 2024 season. And as with any postseason expansion, the ripple effects could be abundant. Stay tuned. College Football Playoff expansion might make sense on paper — but one set of stakeholders is working through the increasingly complicated scheduling puzzle it could present. Sources briefed on discussions told me the Army-Navy game is likely to move to the first week of December — a weekend currently occupied by conference title games — if the College Football Playoff expands to 24 teams. The move would likely ensure a protected television window for the contest, which would fall in line with an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in March. The order stipulated “no college football game, specifically college football’s CFP or other postseason games, be broadcast in a manner that directly conflicts with the Army‑Navy Game.” Moving the game into the regular season, sources said, is a non-starter, despite conversation in recent months that Thanksgiving weekend might be an option. “You’ve seen at the highest levels, people value the game, what our institutions represent, what they produce,” Army athletics director Tom Theodorakis told me. “What I appreciate is, as people are talking through these scenarios, they continue to value and appreciate America’s game, and that they want to preserve and want to put on the biggest stage possible while also providing the opportunity that when our institutions are competing for conference championships and have opportunities to be in the College Football Playoff, we have the opportunity to do so.” To understand the schedule shuffling the Army-Navy game would require if the CFP expands, we need to backtrack a bit. Shifting to 24 teams almost certainly means the elimination of conference championship games — a slate of contests that, across the Power Four, is believed to bring in around $200-250 million annually. First-round games are expected to be shifted to the second week of December, compared to their current slot in the third week of the month. Sources said the most likely scenario in that case would be slotting Army-Navy into the weekend previously occupied by conference title games in the first week of December. That weekend would allow for a standalone window for the game — a crucial prong to the discussion, given the importance it has for viewership, sponsorship dollars and other financial factors. Army-Navy has averaged more than 7 million viewers annually since 2014 and netted at least 7.5 million viewers in seven of the past 10 years. It also surpassed 8 million viewers three times in that span (2017, 2018 and 2024), while the 2024 contest brought in a modern record of 9.4 million viewers. The calendar, however, presents its own challenges if Army or Navy are in the mix for a College Football Playoff bid. Current CFP policy stipulates the game does not factor into selections, given it happens after they’re made. Those involved in the talks suggest keeping that policy in place would make sense even if the field expanded to 24 teams, though it opens the door for quirks. Think, for a moment, that Army is in line for the Group of Six berth into the CFP in an expanded format. What happens if it gets blown out by a down Navy squad? How should that be factored in? That’s less clear. “We continue to just request that Army-Navy remain in an exclusive broadcast window, and with the hope that that’s also positioned in the manner that Navy would have the ability to compete in the CFP if warranted,” Navy athletics director Michael Kelly told me. “There seems to be support from both sides of government and from the White House for that, and I’m grateful for the ways in which the commissioners have undoubtedly taken that into account as they thoughtfully deliberate the format for the college football postseason.” It’s also not certain each Group of Six conference would shelve their conference championship game. For example, the American — of which Army and Navy are members — could cut one bye week and move its title game up to the last week of November if it wanted to keep the contest. Still, all signs point to Army-Navy maintaining its own window if the CFP expands — even if the date shifts around. Wake Forest announced that it’s shifting its multimedia rights from Learfield to Playfly — a sports marketing company that also recently partnered with the NCAA. The move is significant in the college sports business world as the school was the first client of ISP Sports — the spiritual predecessor to IMG College and what is now Learfield — in 1992. ISP Sports founder Ben Sutton also remains engaged at the school as a major Demon Deacons benefactor and has been intimately involved in helping the school break into the new-look world of college sports. Playfly now counts Appalachian State and East Carolina among its North Carolina-based properties, while its broader college portfolio is up to 32. It’s no secret there’s some, shall we say, unrest at Arkansas these days. That said, megabooster John Tyson had jokes on Monday while speaking to the Little Rock Touchdown Club. Asked about the impact Texas Tech’s Cody Campbell has had on the program, Tyson panned, “He’s got oil, I’ve got chickens.” Whatever the case, Arkansas could sure use the extra cash based on the product it has put out on the field in Ryan Silverfield’s first fall in Fayetteville.