US sports broadcaster ESPN, owned by media conglomerate Disney, has agreed an extension to its lucrative media rights deal with American football’s College Football Playoff (CFP) organizing body.
With the renewal, ESPN retains the global media rights to every round of the annual college competition through the end of the 2031-32 season.
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ESPN has served as the exclusive broadcaster of the CFP since 2013, and its initial 12-year contract with the CFP was set to expire at the end of the 2025-26 season, with renewal talks reported as early as January.
The remaining two years of ESPN’s current contract, which was set to run through the 2025-26 season, will also be amended under the terms of the new deal to allow the broadcaster to cover all extra games from the now-expanded playoff competition, which has gone from four teams to 12.
Rights to all ancillary programming and shoulder content surrounding the annual playoffs are also included, as is the ability for Disney to sub-license certain CFP games across the course of the contract.
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The contract, worth a reported $7.8 billion over the six-year renewed term, will also see Disney gain linear and direct-to-consumer distribution rights for the competition, as well as an expanded slate of sales and sponsorship opportunities for Disney, with the media giant’s Disney Advertising sales branch strengthening its position as the exclusive sales body of the CFP’s sponsorship partner program.
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By GlobalDataFrom the 2026-27 CFP season onward, CFP National Championship fixtures will also be aired on Disney-owned broadcaster ABC for the first time since the initial deal between ESPN and CFP. Disney also retains rights to expand broadcast coverage of the CFP even further across its portfolio of media platforms.
Mark Keenum, chair of the CFP board of managers, stated: “ESPN has been a key piece of the overwhelming success of the playoff during these first 10 years. The addition of ABC to this expanded relationship is just the next step in the continued growth of one of the top sporting events of the year.”
In January, ESPN agreed an eight-year, $920 million broadcast agreement with the collegiate sports governing body the NCAA to broadcast its 40 national championship events.
