ESPN Gets Exclusive Broadcast Deal For New College Football Playoffs

The national college football champion will be crowned after an actual playoff, no longer by computer, and you can watch it all unfold on ESPN.

The “worldwide leader in sports” secured a 12-year contract to televise the new NCAA college football post-season playoff system on its network. The four-team playoff will replace the current Bowl Championship Series (BCS) as currently constituted after the 2014 season. ESPN will broadcast the BCS championship game two more times before the new agreement takes effect.

ESPN is already, of course, deeply involved in college football. According to Yahoo! Sports, “ESPN’s current four-year contract to air the Sugar, Orange and Fiesta bowls along with the BCS title game is worth about $125 million per year.”

In the new deal, ESPN apparently paid about $5.6 billion for the playoff game rights through 2025, The Wall Street Journal reports. Other estimates put the price tag at $7 billion.

ESPN’s website provides more details on the new contract for the college football championship playoffs:

“ESPN president John Skipper and Bill Hancock, the executive director of the BCS and committee setting up the college football playoff, announced the deal in principle, which includes rights on TV, radio, mobile TV and WatchESPN. ESPN also gets the rights to the games in 3D, on ESPN Deportes and internationally. It is subject to finalizing documents and approvals.”

The semifinal games for new college football national championship will rotate among six bowl sites. The championship game will also rotate among designated neutral sites. The semifinals in the new college football championship system will occur on December 21 or January 1, and the national title game will be played on the first Monday in January, a.k.a. “Championship Monday.”

Are you pleased that once this playoff system goes into implementation, there will a definitive national champion in NCAA football?