[3] The CFP Board of Managers voted in 2023 to expand the playoff to twelve teams beginning in 2024, an arrangement that will last at least through the end of the 2025 season.

[15] From its formation in 2014 to the end of the 2023 season, the College Football Playoff used a four-team knockout bracket to determine the national champion.

In the 12-team playoff format, four of the six bowls host quarterfinal games on or around New Year's Day (which are determined in the above pairings on a three-year cycle).

The playoff group's leaders make a selection from those proposals, in a similar fashion to other large sporting events, such as the NCAA Final Four.

Officials say the championship game will be held in a different city each year, and that bids must propose host stadiums with a capacity of at least 65,000 spectators.

[31][32] The selection of Condoleezza Rice, a former U.S. Secretary of State and Stanford University provost, was met with some backlash within the sport and the media.

[46] Other factors that the committee weighs are conference championships, team records, and head-to-head results,[12] plus other points such as injuries and weather.

"[49] In analyzing this change in thinking, Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated commented: "The whole point of the selection committee was to replace the simplistic horse-race nature of Top 25 polls – where teams only move up if someone above them loses – with a more deliberative evaluation method.

[49] Some football writers, like Dennis Dodd and Mark Schlabach, have said the recusal arrangement isn't transparent or objective, suggesting that members' alma maters and former coaching jobs should be considered disqualifying conflicts of interest.

[66] As the years passed, public pressure for a playoff grew, especially following seasons in which there were split national championships in the polls.

FBS schools also began making changes to bowl games themselves in the 1990s to increase the likelihood of having the top two ranked teams play each other.

The four team playoff seems to have been arrived at through a combination of concerns such as keeping the regular season meaningful, balancing academic schedules, and fear of eroding public support for bowl games.

[78] On February 18, 2022, the CFP rejected the playoff proposal that had seemed to have already won approval, largely through resistance of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The CFP Board of Managers unanimously voted to expand the playoffs to 12 teams, with the earliest possible change happening in the 2024 season.

Some teams have traditionally played three or four "weak" non-conference opponents, but wins against such low-level competition are unlikely to impress the committee.

For teams on the cusp of making the playoff four, "I think one of the first things the committee will look at is strength of schedule," said selector Oliver Luck.

"[87] Some in the conference, like Mississippi State athletic director Scott Stricklin, expressed the opinion that a nine-game SEC schedule would result in more teams with two losses.

Commissioner Michael Slive and Vanderbilt AD David Williams, among others, supported a stronger out-of-league schedule, which would likely impress the committee.

[104] In November of that year, ESPN reached a 12-year deal to broadcast the remaining three bowls, the championship game, as well as shoulder programming such as ranking shows.

The 2015 College Football Playoff National Championship had an 18.9 Nielsen rating[111] and was watched by approximately 33.4 million people, the largest broadcast audience of all time on American cable television (non-broadcast), according to AdWeek.

[121][122] Reports say the money is to be divided based on several criteria such as "on-field success, teams' expenses, marketplace factors and academic performance of student-athletes".

[127] According to the CFP website, the system's operations are controlled by the Board of Managers, which consists of presidents and chancellors of the playoff group's member universities.

The eleven members have sole authority to develop, review and approve annual budgets, policies and operating guidelines.

[131] According to the CFP website, the Athletics Directors Advisory Group is appointed by the management committee to "offer counsel" on the operations of the system.

[144] Late in the 2020 season, which was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Sports Illustrated writer Pat Forde was strongly critical of the CFP committee for what he considered unfair treatment of teams outside the Power Five; he note that the Big 12's Iowa State, at 8–2, were ranked No.

Former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese also gained membership on the selection committee despite having never played football in college.

[151] Former sportswriter Steve Weiberg and retired U.S. Air Force General Michael Gould are other committee members without significant football playing, coaching, or administrative experience.

The semifinal games for the 2015 season were scheduled for December 31; they were expected to have lower television viewership because the date is not a federal holiday, and because the second game faced heavy competition for television viewers in primetime from New Year's Eve specials (such as New Year's Rockin' Eve, which is aired by ESPN's sister broadcast network ABC).

[116] In an effort to reduce the impact of their New Year's Eve scheduling, the 2016 semifinal games, which fell on a Saturday, had earlier kickoff times, at 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.

[155][156] On July 28, 2016, however, Hancock reversed this stance and announced revisions to the scheduling for future College Football Playoff semi-final games.