Pride, bragging rights and more than $115M at stake when final college playoff rankings come out

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — There's more than just school pride and bragging rights to all that bellyaching over who might be in and who might be out of college football 's first 12-team playoff.

Try the more than $115 million that will be spread across the conferences at the end of the season, all depending on who gets in and which teams go the farthest.

According to the College Football Playoff website, the 12 teams simply making the bracket earn their conferences $4 million each. Another $4 million goes to conferences whose teams get into the quarterfinals. Then, there's $6 million more for teams that make the semifinals and another $6 million for those who play for the title.

Most of this bonanza comes courtesy of ESPN, which is forking over $1.3 billion a year to televise the new postseason. A lot of that money is already earmarked — more goes to the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference than the Big 12 or Atlantic Coast — but a lot is up for grabs in the 11 games that will play out between the opening round on Dec. 20 and the final on Jan. 20.

In all, the teams that make the title game will bring $20 million to their conferences, all of which distribute that money, along with billions in TV revenue and other sources, in different ways. In fiscal 2022-23, the Big Ten, for instance, reported revenue of nearly $880 million and distributed about $60.5 million to most of its members.

The massive stakes might help explain the unabashed lobbying coming from some corners of the football world, as the tension grows in advance of Sunday's final rankings, which will set the bracket.

Earlier this week, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark lit into the selection committee, which doesn't have a single team higher than 15 in the rankings.

That does two things: It positions the Big 12 as a one-bid league, and also threatens to makes its champion — either Arizona State or Iowa State — the fifth-best among conference titlists that get automatic bids. Only the top four of those get byes, which could cost the Big 12 a spot in the quarterfinals — or $4 million.

“The committee continues to show time and time again that they are paying attention to logos versus resumes,” Yormark said this week, while slamming the idea of teams with two losses in his conference being ranked worse than teams with three in the SEC.

The ACC is also staring at a one-bid season with only No. 8 SMU inside the cut line of this week's projected bracket. Miami's loss last week all but bumped the Hurricanes out of the playoffs, a snub that ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said left him “incredibly shocked and disappointed."

“As we look ahead to the final rankings, we hope the committee will reconsider and put a deserving Miami in the field," Phillips said in a statement.

The lobbying and bickering filters down to the campuses that feel the impact. And, of course, to social media.

One of the most entertaining episodes came earlier this week when athletic directors at Iowa State and SMU went back and forth about whose team was more deserving.

There are a few stray millions that the selection committee cannot really influence, including a $3 million payment to conferences that make the playoff.

In a reminder that all these kids are going to school, after all, the conferences get $300,000 per football team that meets academic requirements to participate in the postseason. (That's basically everyone).

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Eddie Pells, The Associated Press