Exclusive: Clark Lea says college football will have to sacrifice tradition in exchange for CFP expansion
Go ahead and get used to it now: the debate over expanding the College Football Playoff to 24 teams isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Sitting inside Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea's office on Wednesday, it wasn’t hard to notice the ongoing chatter that has now once again reared its head.
Ever since CFP leaders wrapped meetings in Miami — before Indiana capped an historic season with a national championship — the battle between the SEC and the rest of college football has only intensified, with the most recent gathering taking place just outside of Dallas.
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At the center of it all is one question: how big should the playoff field actually be?
For months, the SEC has stood firm behind a 16-team format, a model its television partner ESPN supports. Meanwhile, the Big Ten has pushed for 24 teams — an idea that initially drew resistance from the ACC and Big 12 before opinions started to shift.
That’s nothing new. Conference commissioners changing positions is practically part of the job. But this time, the stakes are higher. With revenue-sharing challenges mounting across college athletics — and some schools already cutting sports — expanding the playoff has become a potential financial lifeline.
More teams mean more games. More games mean more television inventory. And more inventory means more money, maybe.
As the new College Football Playoff contract with ESPN starts, which is a six-year deal, there is a number of teams that could essentially trigger additional bidding. According to industry sources, if the CFP were to agree on a 14-team postseason, ESPN would still hold onto its inventory of games, which they could continue sub-licensing out to networks like TNT or TBS.
But, if CFP leaders were to somehow agree to the 24-team format, or even 16-teams, this would allow networks like FOX, NBC or CBS to join the party if they were willing to pay. This stems from the contract signed by ESPN and the CFP, which would allow the playoff to put the extra games that would come from a 24-team postseason on the market.
And while that might be the case, from an economic standpoint, the smarter move would be for ESPN to just purchase the rights to the added games of a 16-team playoff given it might not be worth the price for FOX or NBC to purchase the additional two matchups.
Though it’s not hard to see why multiple conferences would be on board.
As Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea pointed out this week in Nashville, expansion isn’t as simple as adding more teams.
"The first thing that we need to focus on is when we end the season," Clark Lea told OutKick. "I think we have a real issue right now, and I think the issue is tied to TV contracts and dedicated time slots where we're not competing with the NFL, and stuff like that which extends our season three weeks into January that absolutely undermines the integrity of what we're trying to do as a sport.
"Whatever we do next with the playoff, expansion is coming. We (SEC) all expected it for this year and it hit a hiccup. But, as expansion comes, it cannot come at the expense of paying attention to the seasons end, and let's be more reasonable at tying that."
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As OutKick reported over the past year, expanding the playoff in this magnitude could also come with the caveat that conference title games would cease to exist. While this might sound like an easy fix to some, it's a much bigger concept to actually pull off, given the amount of money ESPN and FOX pay for these title games, with both games receiving a reported $160 million for their title games combined.
"We're going to have to let go of some traditional end of the year elements in college football," Clark Lea mentioned, while also noting that he 'thinks' that would be a conference championship.
So what replaces them?
"Somehow the playoff model is incorporated, right?" Lea offered up. "Otherwise, this (season) extends forever. I think we saw last year these ridiculous breaks in play, which I think ruins the competitive product on the field. I would be really interested to hear answers and to get people thinking towards those things.
"How do we improve the product, tighten the season? Finishing closer to the semester ending, the portal window. Now all of the sudden we have a better product."
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The idea of repackaging an SEC, Big Ten, ACC or Big 12 championship weekend into play-in type games for each conference is an idea that television networks like ESPN and FOX have been at least discussing.
Given that they would be giving up a money-making game in terms of advertising and ratings, the substitute would have to be enticing enough to contemplate.
But, if you were to ask the fans if they would rather watch four teams battling in Atlanta, Indianapolis, Charlotte or Dallas over a two-day period for a spot in the college football playoff, I'd imagine that would be an easy sell to networks and advertisers alike.
Even then, deciding on a route to take is not easy task.
"Those decisions need to be made based on driving as much possible revenue and getting the best possible negotiation out of each game we have. So, to say 24 or 16 is really just to say as many teams as we can, while also not giving away the ability to negotiate what those games can bring to us.
At the end of the day, folks just want to see the sport of college football put in the best possible spot moving forward, which includes the coaches who are competing for spots, like Clark Lea.
"What we do when we start to participate in these conversations is we become fans. I know it's way more complex than just adding as many teams as possible. This has got to be done in the best way to optimize our product, and to drive the revenue we need to sustain our sport."
While SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey is essentially standing on an island by himself in terms of pushing a 16-team format over a jump to 24, we're starting to hear his coaches within the conference start to voice their differing opinions on what the future should actually look like.
While that might be the case, the coaches only have so much weight in these conversations, as I discussed on Wednesday.
Either way, spring meetings in college football became much more important over the past two years, with the Big Ten set to meet next week in Los Angeles, while the SEC prepares to meet after Memorial Day in Florida.
Let the games continue.