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The College Football Playoff is taking new measures to avoid even more competition with the NFL.
For the first time in the 12-team CFP era, the four quarterfinal games in the upcoming postseason will not be played on consecutive days.
The CFP, ESPN, and TNT Sports released the kickoff times and broadcast information for the 2026-27 playoff this week.
TNT Sports will air the first quarterfinal matchup in the Fiesta Bowl, which will be played Dec. 30 at 7:30 p.m. ET. The remaining three quarterfinals—the Cotton, Peach, and Rose bowls—will be played two days later on New Year’s Day across TNT Sports and ESPN.
In previous years, one quarterfinal was scheduled for New Year’s Eve and the other three for New Year’s Day. (In 2025, the Sugar Bowl was delayed from New Year’s Day to Jan. 2.)
However, this year Amazon Prime Video’s 2026 Thursday Night Football slate concludes with a Ravens-Bengals matchup on New Year’s Eve. Last year, Amazon’s regular-season NFL finale was on Christmas.
In 2025, there were five bowl games on New Year’s Eve, culminating with Miami’s Playoff quarterfinal victory over Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl that evening. This year’s full non-CFP bowl schedule has not yet been released.
January Football
The CFP national championship game will be played on Jan. 25—the latest date ever for the game—which was announced back in January of 2025.
The past two years the title game has been played on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but in 2027 the holiday (Jan. 18) falls on the NFL’s wild card weekend, when ESPN has a Monday Night Football broadcast.
There will be two weeks between the three quarterfinals on New Year’s Day and the first semifinal on Jan. 14.
When reached for comment on the scheduling decisions by Front Office Sports, an ESPN spokesperson deferred to the CFP, which did not immediately respond.
Nowhere to Hide
TNT Sports will once again see its two first-round CFP broadcasts go head-to-head with NFL action.
On Dec. 19, TNT Sports will broadcast on-campus playoff matchups at 3:30 p.m. ET and 7:30 p.m. ET. That same Saturday, the NFL’s Week 15 slate will include games with four potential playoff teams—a Seahawks-Eagles matchup at 5 p.m. ET on Fox, and a Bears-Bills game at 8:20 p.m. ET on CBS.
Last year, the CFP’s four first-round games averaged 9.9 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, and TNT Sports—down 7% from 2024—amid similarly stiff competition from late-season NFL Saturday action.
TNT Sports is adding two quarterfinals and a semifinal matchup to its CFP slate this season, after sublicensing two first-round CFP games from ESPN each of the last two years.
This marks the first season of ESPN’s six-year, $7.8 billion CFP media rights extension the network signed back in 2024.
