College Football’s Expanded Playoff Will Begin With First-Round Game on Dec. 20 in Primetime

The first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff will begin with a first-round game on Dec. 20 and conclude with the title game a month later in Atlanta.

The CFP announced its entire schedule on Wednesday. The four games in the first round will be on December 20th and 21st. ABC and ESPN will air the games on Friday and Saturday nights starting at 8pm EST, while TNT will have the afternoon games on December 21st at 12pm and 4pm. afternoon games will be against two NFL games with Houston-Kansas City at 1 p.m. and Baltimore-Pittsburgh at 4:30 p.m.

Mike Mulvihill, president of insights and analytics at Fox, believes there will be room to accommodate both audiences. Fox has the Ravens-Steelers game as it faces a CFP showdown later in the afternoon.

“I think it will be good for the NFL and college football to coexist on that date. I think both events will be well evaluated,” he said.

The four first round games, which will be played on university campuses, will be announced on December 8th. TNT has two games through a sublicense with ESPN.

ESPN US$7.8 billion deal with the CFP, announced in March, it allowed sublicensing games to other networks. Financial terms of the sublicense were not announced.

The quarterfinals, semifinals and championship will air on ESPN.

The top four conference champions will receive first-round byes. The quarterfinals will begin on December 31st with the Fiesta Bowl at 7:30 p.m. New Year’s Day will begin with the Peach Bowl at 1 p.m., followed by the Rose Bowl in its traditional location at 5 p.m. and the Sugar Bowl at 8:45 p.m.

The semifinals are the Orange Bowl on January 9th and the Cotton Bowl on January 10th. Both kick off at 7:30 p.m. before the championship game takes place on Jan. 20 in Atlanta.

ESPN will announce its schedule for most bowl games on Thursday.

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