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THE RECEIPTS

SOURCES.
NOT JUST SENTIMENT.

Every major claim should be something you can inspect.

Accessed October 1, 2026. Facts, reported proposals, calculations and campaign judgments are identified separately. A linked commentator has not endorsed this campaign.

THE HISTORICAL CALCULATION.

We transcribed ranks 1–24 from the official final CFP selection-day rankings for the 2021 through 2025 seasons. These records include completed conference championship games and exclude subsequent bowls and CFP games. They are not the postseason AP poll.

Each school-season counts once, even when the same school appears in several years. We count entries with losses ≥ 3. We do not adjust for strength of schedule, simulate missing games, apply future automatic bids or treat rank as an actual playoff seed.

Reproducible five-season totals
SeasonSelection date3+ losses, top 243+ losses, ranks 17–24
2021 ↗2021-12-058 / 245 / 8
2022 ↗2022-12-0412 / 247 / 8
2023 ↗2023-12-0310 / 246 / 8
2024 ↗2024-12-0810 / 246 / 8
2025 ↗2025-12-079 / 246 / 8
Total49 / 120 = 40.8%30 / 40 = 75%

Interpretation limit: the historical top 24 is a fixed-ranking illustration. It cannot tell us exactly which teams a future selection process would include, how coaches would behave under different rules or how audiences would respond.

Conference title-game losses are included because they appear in the official final rankings. A proposal that removes those games changes the counterfactual. The 2022 release labels its through-date “Saturday, December 4”; December 4 was the Sunday release date. We preserve the records and use the actual release date, without silently rewriting source data.

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Official rankings sources

Final CFP rankings: 2021 ↗

College Football Playoff · CFP selection committee · Published 2021-12-05 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Supports all 24 ranks and win-loss records for this season.

Final CFP rankings: 2022 ↗

College Football Playoff · CFP selection committee · Published 2022-12-04 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Supports all 24 ranks and win-loss records for this season.

Final CFP rankings: 2023 ↗

College Football Playoff · CFP selection committee · Published 2023-12-03 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Supports all 24 ranks and win-loss records for this season.

Final CFP rankings: 2024 ↗

College Football Playoff · CFP selection committee · Published 2024-12-08 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Supports all 24 ranks and win-loss records for this season.

Final CFP rankings: 2025 ↗

College Football Playoff · CFP selection committee · Published 2025-12-07 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Supports all 24 ranks and win-loss records for this season.

THE FCS REVENUE SCENARIO.

Snapshot checked October 2, 2026. Summing HERO Sports’ 98 disclosed payouts gives $42,905,000. Dividing by 98 and extending that mean to 127 scheduled games gives about $55.6 million. The 29 missing payouts may differ; this is an extrapolation.

Per-school totals combine repeated appearances, treating “Southeastern” and “Southeastern Louisiana” as one program. There are 84 unique recipients. Threshold counts are inclusive and use disclosed contracts only.

The scenario assumes all FBS–FCS guarantee games vanish. No verified adopted rule requires that outcome. It measures gross scheduled revenue, excluding replacement games, saved travel costs, new subsidies and other offsets. It is neither a net budget loss nor a prediction of program closures.

NCAA figures cover fiscal 2024 and all athletics, not football alone. Revenue and expense medians can refer to different institutions; subtracting them would not describe a typical school’s exact deficit. Budget cuts are a conditional campaign concern.

THE BRACKET ARITHMETIC.

One champion remains after N − 1 teams are eliminated. With one elimination per game, 12 teams require 11 games; 24 teams require 23. The increase is 12 games, or approximately 109.1%.

The illustrative 24-team sequence is 8 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 games, assuming eight first-round byes. The 12-team sequence is 4 + 4 + 2 + 1 games, with four first-round byes. These counts do not include conference championship games or non-CFP bowls.

FCS FINANCIAL IMPACT

2026 FCS vs. FBS payouts ↗

HERO Sports · HERO Sports
Published 2026 season; checked October 2, 2026 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Disclosed guarantee contracts; campaign totals and per-school exposure calculations. Scheduled payouts do not establish actual receipts.

CFP ANNOUNCEMENTS

CFP Management Committee Met Wednesday ↗

College Football Playoff · CFP
Published September 30, 2026 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Potential expansion, no commitment, ESPN window ending October 9 and December 1 format deadline.

CFP Governance ↗

College Football Playoff · CFP
Published Undated; current page · Accessed October 1, 2026

Board of Managers and Management Committee responsibilities.

PROPOSAL & CONFERENCE POSITIONS

CFP leaders discussing logistics of a 24-team playoff ↗

Yahoo Sports; accessible syndicated copy at AOL · Ross Dellenger
Published September 30, 2026 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Reported selection model; conference positions; possible removal of title games; calendar; Army–Navy; revenue replacement. Reporting, not an adopted format.

TELEVISION AUDIENCES

PUBLIC COMMENTS

Rece Davis on CFP expansion ↗

Awful Announcing / The Next Round · Sean Keeley
Published May 15, 2026 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Rece Davis’s comments on The Next Round; article includes the original interview clip.

Josh Pate rips 24-team CFP ↗

Awful Announcing · Brendon Kleen
Published May 8, 2026 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Pate’s opposition and regular-season argument. His opinion is not a representative public-opinion measurement.

CFP Expansion To 24 Teams CANNOT Happen ↗

Josh Pate’s College Football Show / YouTube · Josh Pate
Published May 2026 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Original episode linked by Awful Announcing. Video playback was unavailable during the audit; quotations checked against the reported transcript.

Reaction to 24-team expansion ↗

Threads · Chase Daniel
Published September 30, 2026 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Direct public reaction opposing 24 teams; verified from search-indexed post text.

ACADEMIC RESEARCH

Suspense-Optimal College Football Play-Offs ↗

Journal of Sports Economics 15(5), 519–540 · Jarrod Olson and Daniel F. Stone
Published 2014 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Historical, model-based analysis of championship suspense under 2-, 4-, 8- and 16-team formats. Not a study of modern 12-to-24 expansion or observed causal TV losses. DOI: 10.1177/1527002514541040.

PLAYOFF STRUCTURE

NCAA reveals new 76-team bracket ↗

NCAA · NCAA Staff
Published May 7, 2026 · Accessed October 1, 2026

Corrects an outdated premise in the initial brief: March Madness expands from 68 to 76 for 2027.

OFFICIAL CONTACT CHANNELS

SEC Office Staff Directory ↗

Southeastern Conference · SEC
Published Undated; current page · Accessed October 1, 2026

Public feedback channel, not private staff contact information.

Contact Us ↗

College Football Playoff · CFP
Published Undated; current page · Accessed October 1, 2026

Official public contact channel.

FAN POLLING

Outrage over reported 24-team expansion ↗

Pro Football & Sports Network · PFN staff; byline not independently confirmed
Published October 1, 2026 (search-indexed) · Accessed October 1, 2026

Secondary reporting of a Josh Pate poll. Original question and final results not fully verified, so no poll percentage is used in campaign graphics or homepage claims.

WHAT WE AREN’T CLAIMING.

Research did not establish a credible causal estimate of the effect of modern 12-to-24 expansion on regular-season television demand. The campaign’s principal empirical contribution is the transparent historical threshold analysis.