College Football Playoff executives plan to further discuss in the coming days the Rose Bowl’s latest request as it relates to CFP expansion in what could be an ultimatum for, or compromise with, the sport’s oldest active bowl game, sources told Sports Illustrated. A final decision on the Rose Bowl’s fate is expected this week.
In its latest proposal to the CFP, the Rose Bowl is requesting to host a semifinal in two out of every three years assuming semifinals are held on New Year’s Day. It is another attempt to keep the Rose Bowl’s traditional date and time (5 p.m. ET on Jan. 1) in future postseason formats.
The bowl game’s proposal comes at an intensely pressurized time as CFP officials are attempting to finalize an expanded 12-team playoff in time for the 2024 season. However, one major hurdle stands in the way: the Granddaddy of Them All, a 106-year-old game based in Pasadena, Calif., that is tethered to the Rose Parade.
In position to single-handedly delay playoff expansion, the Rose Bowl wants guarantees around its role in future playoffs in exchange for agreeing to expand early. Five of the six bowls—Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, Peach and Cotton—are in support of amending the contract to expand early. But CFP officials need unanimous agreement to expand the playoff to 12 teams before the media rights contract with ESPN ends after the 2025 playoff. Few, if any, guarantees can be made for the Playoff beyond ’25, because no contract exists.
Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports
The Rose Bowl has delayed its decision and has instead sent at least two different proposals outlining its wishes to the CFP Board of Managers, an 11-member group of FBS presidents governing the playoff. It is yet another roadblock in negotiations to expand the CFP that are on their 18th month. In June 2021, a subcommittee of commissioners proposed the 12-team model that presidents adopted Sept. 2. Presidents intervened after commissioners failed to agree on a format, a process filled with drama, pettiness and animosity over both conference realignment and differing ideals.
While working around deadlines set by CFP officials, the Rose Bowl at first requested to retain its exclusive Jan. 1 window in future playoffs, something at which CFP executives balked. In the expanded playoff format approved by presidents Sept. 2, the six bowls would host the quarterfinals and semifinals in a rotation. The Rose Bowl wanted to hold a non-CFP game when its playoff game did not fall on New Year’s Day, pitting teams from the Pac-12 and Big Ten against each other in an exclusive window at its traditional date and time.
According to sources, the Rose Bowl’s latest proposal relinquishes an exclusive window but in exchange wants to host a semifinal on New Year’s Day in two years of its three-year rotation—a demand met with a visceral reaction from fellow bowl officials as well as many CFP presidents and commissioners.
With a loose end-of-the-month deadline approaching, CFP officials are gearing up to determine the Rose Bowl’s latest request, a decision that could impact the timing of expansion. Many expect little-to-no compromise from a governing body that is seething over what has been a multiweek process of negotiations. Months, if not years, of frustration over the Rose Bowl’s positioning has come to a crescendo.
In many ways, the Rose Bowl is at risk of not only impacting one of its longtime partners (the Pac-12), but also its own stake in future playoffs starting with a new contract in 2026. If it continues to delay expansion, could the Rose Bowl lose its place?
It’s a question several high-placed sources within college athletics are pondering. Replacement options are virtually unlimited—some of the country’s top tier, warm-weather bowls would likely be in the discussion, such as the Citrus, Gator, Music City and Texas Bowls. One administrator also suggested holding a newly created bowl game across town at SoFi Stadium, the location of this year’s national championship.
The situation comes to a head more than two months after presidents unanimously approved a 12-team playoff expansion to begin no later than 2026, the first year of what would be a new CFP contract with the six bowls and a broadcasting partner or partners. The 10 FBS commissioners, as well as Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, have spent the past several weeks focusing on expanding in ’24 or ’25. With each meeting, commissioners have resolved many issues, most notably the scheduling of eight additional playoff games, the revenue distribution model and the logistics of hosting the first round on campus sites.
However, there is one issue commissioners do not control: the contracts tied to each of the six bowls.
If Rose Bowl officials do not agree to terms, they would be costing college football in more ways than one. An expanded CFP would generate a combined $450 million in additional revenue in 2024 and ’25, as well as a combined 16 additional playoff spots. Labeled stubborn by some and traditionalists by others, the Rose Bowl’s position has long been expected, previously described by some as “the biggest hangup” and the “big issue” to expansion. Top-level conference executives anonymously expressed their frustration over the game, which has been historically protected by longtime relationships within the Pac-12 and Big Ten.
If it does not agree, the Rose Bowl also would cost its own partner. No Power 5 league needs expansion more than the Pac-12. The Pac-12 and Big 12 have combined to qualify six teams for the eight playoffs, the same number as the Big Ten. The SEC has qualified 10 and the ACC eight.
The Rose Bowl has been played every year since 1916, a run of more than a century that, through the years, has afforded it the accommodations of college football’s most elite event. Along with being tied to the Rose Parade, the game is purposely timed—2 p.m. in Pasadena—to have the sun set, in the fourth quarter, on the San Gabriel Mountains in a scene that many say is the most picturesque in the sport.
Under proposed dates for the 2024 and ’25 expanded playoffs, the six participating bowls would rotate hosting quarterfinals on New Year’s Day and semifinals for later in January. For the Rose Bowl, there are no complications those years. It is scheduled in ’24 and ’25 to be a quarterfinal and would retain its traditional kickoff on New Year’s Day.
However, in new iterations of the playoff in 2026 and beyond, there is deep discussion about moving the regular season up a week and shifting the calendar so the semifinals are played on New Year’s Day.
