We recently published our estimated annual per-school payouts for each P5 conference. Those projections included 2022 to 2028, and assumed an 8-team CFP expansion during that time. As we explain in that blog post, we chose an 8-team expansion as a way to include the additional revenue of a likely expansion, while remaining conservative in our projections.

We received a lot of inquires as to how our estimates would change if the frequently discussed 12-team expansion were to occur. In response, we updated our projections and you can see a full breakdown in the following table:

Navigate's P5 Payout Estimates Table_Updated

Our updated estimates rely on some key assumptions listed below.

  • The new CFP payout for 11 playoff games that also takes over all NY6 game relationships in a 12-team playoff.
  • The 12-team CFP payout model is adjusted to reward performance more than CFP has historically done. This would transform the CFP payout to be more aligned with the NCAA Basketball Tournament model.
  • Our initial model estimated that 63% of payout goes towards base payments to conferences and the remaining 37% goes towards conferences in NY6 bowls and playoff games, which was also assumed in this new model.
  • To allocate non-base payouts, we looked back at the last 11-years (2011 to 2021) of college football performance and assumed the proposed 12-team playoff rules are used for participation to estimate the number of teams included in the playoff each year:
    • P5 Champions are included in the playoff.
    • Highest Ranked G5 conference champion is included in the playoff.
    • Remaining 6 playoff teams are at-large bids.
  • The new realignment with the SEC and Big 12 is accounted for in the methodology.
  • To estimate the value of each round participating, we assumed each round of the playoff sees increased TV viewership by 25%, and assigned values to each game, and totaled those estimates by conference and averaged them over the same 11-year timeframe.

The number of teams that make the CFP from each conference will greatly impact the annual payout. The below chart lays out the average number of teams from each conference that would have made the 12-team CFP historically, based on the model above.

Average Teams in 12-Team CFP

Read more about our projections in this article published by The Athletic.