Sources: CFP may withhold added revenue from SMU despite Power Five move

HOUSTON — Inside a hotel board room Monday, a few hours before Washington meets Michigan in the national championship game, leaders of the College Football Playoff will gather to rubber-stamp a few important items.

They are expected to formally approve format changes to the expanded playoff in light of the Pac-12's disbanding, moving to what’s termed a “5+7” format that features five automatic qualifying spots for conference champions and seven at-large spots for the next highest-ranked teams (the previous format was a 6+6). And they are also expected to adopt a policy requiring a league to have at least eight members to be eligible to earn an automatic qualifying spot in the playoff.

But there is something else on the docket. It involves a school located just 250 miles from Houston.

SMU, the latest Group of Five program to elevate to the Power Five next year with its jump to the ACC, is at the heart of a CFP money fight.

In the past, schools making the jump from Group of Five to Power Five also saw a leap in their distribution from the College Football Playoff. The difference in annual payout between G5 teams ($1 million) and P5 teams ($6 million) is substantial.

However, after a discussion among CFP commissioners on Nov. 9, SMU did not garner the necessary support for additional revenue distribution. The issue has now been shifted to the commissioners’ corresponding presidents on the CFP Board of Managers, the playoff’s highest governing body made up of a school president from each FBS conference and Notre Dame.

Multiple conference commissioners declined comment on the matter as well as CFP executive director Bill Hancock. In a brief interview with Yahoo Sports, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips expressed disappointment on the issue but declined to elaborate on the details. SMU athletic director Rick Hart declined comment when reached this week.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey pointed toward the CFP’s long-standing rules around modifications to revenue policies.

“You have to have a unanimous vote to alter revenue distribution and diminish somebody else’s revenue,” Sankey said. “That’s it.”

A formal vote is possible Monday among the 11-member CFP Board of Managers following a scheduled gathering of the commissioners. CFP leaders could push the topic to another time or, possibly, reach a compromise by agreeing to grant SMU a portion of the Power Five revenue.

In many ways, this fight over revenue is a precursor to the looming money battle among the 10 FBS conferences after the current CFP contract expires following the 2025 playoff. The CFP’s television contract with ESPN is what binds the leagues together under a previously agreed upon revenue distribution model.

The CFP is in the midst of negotiating a new television deal, and a new revenue distribution model is expected to start in 2026, at which point, presumably, SMU will be granted a full Power Five payout.

For the next two years, however, the school could be out $6 million that officials expected to receive. That includes the $1 million CFP share from the Group of Five as that, too, is at stake.

During negotiations to join the ACC, the school committed to the conference under the impression that it would receive the full CFP funds, according to comments made by SMU officials in August. There was recent precedent of such a guarantee. In 2022, the CFP voted to distribute full Power Five payouts to new Big 12 schools UCF, Cincinnati, Houston and BYU — all of them elevating from G5 to P5.

Making the situation especially painful is the unique arrangement that SMU made with the ACC. Heavily motivated to be in the Power Five and backed by a plethora of mega-boosters, SMU agreed to accept no television revenue from the ACC in its first nine years in the conference. That said, school officials expected to receive non-television ACC payouts that total at least $10-12 million annually — roughly half of which, it thought, would come from the CFP.

Without the CFP, SMU’s first nine years in the ACC may generate annually roughly half of what it earned in distribution while in the American Athletic Conference (about $9 million).

Currently, the CFP distributes $460 million annually. About 80% goes to the Power Five and 20% to the Group of Five.

The Big Ten and SEC, swelling to 18 and 16 members, respectively, with arguably eight of the top-10 most valuable brands in the sport, may urge for the distribution model to further skew toward them as a new “Power 2,” a term widely used to describe college football’s behemoth leagues.

The revenue battle is likely to be a hotly contested showdown and one that could come soon. The CFP, expanding to 12 teams starting next season, is working towards a new, lucrative television deal that may necessitate a modified revenue distribution model as soon as this year.

CFP leaders are expected to get an update on TV negotiations next week. Multiple potential suitors have presented before commissioners, including ESPN, Fox, NBC, Turner and Amazon. ESPN owns the rights for the championship game, semifinals and quarterfinals through the 2025 playoff and gets first right to match in first-round games.

If the CFP does deny SMU’s Power Five funding, the association sets a moratorium on additional revenue for those schools elevating from Group of Five to Power Five — a policy likely to even span into a new CFP contract starting in 2026. The move is yet another sign that college leaders are attempting to restrict Division I’s highest body from further expansion.

That goes for those moving from FCS to FBS. For instance, the Division I Board of Directors increased the FBS entrance from $5,000 to $5 million last year.