Fox’s College Football Playoff expansion pitch sounds a lot like Big Ten’s

Appearing at Puck’s In The Arena event, Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks was asked about the prospect of College Football Playoff expansion.

And it may shock you to learn that the longtime executive isn’t just in favor of expanding the format, but doing so by doubling the current 12-team field.

“I’m very much in favor of expanding the CFP. I don’t see any reason why the CFP can’t be 24 teams,” Shanks told MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson during a Q&A at the event. “You can fit it into the schedule. You can have automatic qualifiers from the different conferences. There’s a good model to expand the playoff, and still allow some of the Group of Five to be able to get in. That would give the CFP the opportunity to have more networks involved. Still, with 24 teams, you wouldn’t have an enormous amount of games, but I think you can get more people promoting and marketing the playoffs than there are today.

If the idea of a 24-team College Football Playoff sounds familiar, that’s because — as noted by CBS Sports’ Bryan Fischer— it’s the same format that Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti has been floating since this past summer. Like Shanks’ suggestion, the Big Ten’s reported proposal includes 24 (or even as many as 28) teams and multiple automatic qualifiers for the power conferences — the latter of which the SEC is also reportedly in favor of.

It would superfluous to note (but we’ll do it anyways) that Fox is the Big Ten’s primary media rights partner, so it’s hardly a surprise that the two entities would be in lock step. Especially when such a format would be mutually beneficial to both entities, giving the conference greater access to the playoff and its revenue while simultaneously creating more inventory that the network could potentially be a part of.