16-Team CFP Bracket Reportedly 'Becoming More Preferred' By Power 4 Commissioners

College football could be moving toward a 16-team College Football Playoff bracket beginning with the 2026 season, per ESPN's Pete Thamel, who provided more information.

The CFP was at four teams for 10 seasons from the tournament's beginning in 2014 through the 2023 campaign. Last year, the CFP expanded from four to 12, where it will remain in 2025.

Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports reported on a potential expansion as well after the four power commissioners met in New York on Thursday. The driving force behind the expansion seems to be the Big Ten and SEC's desire to have four automatic qualifiers from their conferences. Dellenger broke down what a potential 16-team bracket may look like.

The inner-league play-in games, which Dellenger reported on in February, is the eye-opener here. They would occur during Championship Weekend, with the first- and second-place teams playing for the league title (and presumably, a better seed in the CFP, which both would have already qualified for) while teams below them fight for CFP berths.

Of course, there's potentially millions in TV dollars out there if the bracket expansion comes into effect. Dellenger wrote about in February.

"Within the SEC and Big Ten, momentum is building to further expand the playoff to 14 or 16 teams, assign multiple automatic qualifiers per league — as many as four each for themselves — and finalize a scheduling arrangement together that may fetch millions in additional revenue from TV partners, sources told Yahoo Sports.

"The playoff format change would clear the way for SEC administrators to, finally, make the long-discussed move to play nine regular-season conference games and would trigger, perhaps, all four power leagues to overhaul their conference championship weekend."

The 2026 season is a big one for the sport. That year marks the CFP's six-year, $7.8 billion contract with ESPN, making them the exclusive media rights holder for the tournament, per ESPN's Heather Dinich.

And the SEC and Big Ten apparently hold the cards here on the future of the tournament, per Dellenger.

"According to most who have viewed the memorandum of understanding from last spring, the SEC and Big Ten hold sole discretion on the future CFP format starting in 2026, the beginning of the CFP’s new six-year television agreement with ESPN that runs through the 2031 playoff.

"The agreement grants the leagues decision-making powers over the format but directs them to have 'meaningful consultation' and collect 'input' from the other conferences before making their decision."

Ultimately, the expansion seems inevitable, with the questions being the format and logistics at this point.