ESPN Expected to Sublicense College Football Playoff Semifinal to TNT Sports

ESPN is expected to sublicense at least one College Football Playoff semifinal for each year in 2026, 2027, and 2028 to TNT Sports, sources confirmed to Front Office Sports.

The deal is not a separate agreement with TNT. Rather, it reflects ESPN exercising an option already stipulated in the current sublicensing agreement between the two networks that runs until 2028, one source told FOS. 

The deal began in 2024, when TNT broadcast two first-round games in the new 12-team format. TNT will also have two first-round games in 2025, and it will add two quarterfinals per year starting in 2026. As part of this extension, TNT will also broadcast a CFP semifinal in 2026, 2027, and 2028—giving it access to some of college sports’ most valuable assets.

Yahoo Sports first reported the news.

No other network has had the rights to the College Football Playoff, by far the most popular and lucrative college sports postseason event, since its inception more than a decade ago. The four-team format was scrapped this past year, when the CFP put on a 12-team Playoff for the first time. In 2024, ESPN signed a $7.8 billion media extension to gobble up the rights to the entire expanded Playoff until 2032—but then sublicensed a portion to TNT Sports.

The news also comes amid fierce debates about how the future CFP will look, both in 2025 and beyond. In the short term, negotiations are continuing regarding whether certain conferences will gain more automatic bids to the CFP. In the long term, discussions are ongoing about potentially expanding the Playoff to 16 teams.

Meanwhile, the first year of the expanded CFP drew tens of millions of viewers, even if the later rounds did not draw as many as the four-team Playoff did in 2024. The 2025 semifinals drew an average of 19.2 million viewers, down 17% from the previous year, and the title game between Ohio State and Notre Dame drew 22 million viewers, down 12% from the previous year.

TNT Sports and ESPN declined to comment.

TNT Sports is in the midst of adapting to a new normal after losing the NBA to a combination of Amazon Prime Video and NBC. TNT was spending about $1.2 billion a year on the NBA, which is a budget that can be reallocated to other sports. 

Besides the CFP, TNT has added the French Open and invested in the Mountain West. It acquired a slate of Big 12 football and basketball games from ESPN in a separate sublicensing deal in which ESPN will get to air Inside the NBA in return. The iconic studio show will still be produced by TNT. The network is also a rights holder and investor in the upstart Unrivaled 3-on-3 women’s basketball league. The network remains involved in MLB and is a key rights-holder in the lucrative men’s March Madness deal.

TNT is actively seeking to mitigate cable and satellite distributors from lowering their affiliate fees in their approximately 70 million homes.