College football has always had issues with its postseason slate. How do you properly determine a national champion when you have more than 100 teams spread across ten major FBS conferences? It’s a formula the sport has wrestled with for decades in an effort to crown the best team each season. The College Football Playoff was the latest solution, yet the formula remains flawed.
One key difference between the College Football Playoff and previous methods of determining a national champion stands out. The Walt Disney Company and ESPN have owned the broadcast rights since the Playoff’s inception in 2015. For the past decade, ESPN has been the exclusive home of everything the College Football Playoff has become. That exclusivity is a sticking point for FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt.
Klatt argues that the College Football Playoff should not have a single television partner when it comes to presentation. However, in an era of fragmented sports viewership and a postseason format that continues to evolve, the fact that fans have one clear place to watch the Playoff may be the smartest decision the sport has made.
Klatt, who has worked for FOX Sports since 2013, is the latest voice to find fault with the College Football Playoff. Many critics have long suggested ESPN’s coverage carries a bias because of its ties to the SEC and other conferences. There is no fact-based evidence to support claims of bias in team selection or broadcast presentation. Instead, those arguments have become background noise for sports talk shows nationwide.
What makes Klatt’s latest critique different is that it targets ESPN directly rather than the Playoff itself. He argues that the Playoff, which has partnered exclusively with ESPN since 2015, chose “the wrong path when it comes to the presentation of the playoff.”
He continued, “There is no playoff that should be a single television partner. It just shouldn’t. Because the presentation is important, in particular, when you’re down to this point in the sport where you’re trying to showcase games.”
Presentation does matter. Klatt should understand that as FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst alongside Gus Johnson. But applying that logic to this season’s Playoff reveals some inconvenient truths.
The opening round featured one game on Friday night and three games scheduled back-to-back on Saturday. Alabama/Oklahoma and Miami (FL)/Texas A&M aired on ABC/ESPN, while Tulane/Ole Miss and James Madison/Oregon aired on TNT Sports. The TNT Sports games were part of a sublicense agreement between ESPN and TNT Sports.
At the same time, Klatt’s own network carried an NFL doubleheader that went head-to-head with the two Playoff games on TNT. Would FOX Sports really sideline NFL programming from a longstanding rights deal to air College Football Playoff games instead? Based on NFL viewership versus Playoff viewership, that’s an unrealistic expectation.
Yes, the NFL rotates the Super Bowl among networks. CBS, NBC, FOX and ABC all share the biggest annual telecast in American television.
The College Football Playoff is different.
ESPN offers multiple viewing experiences tailored to different audiences. It leans into next-generation statistics, alternative commentary feeds and personality-driven presentations. Can FOX Sports provide that same depth? CBS? NBC?
Have those networks built the infrastructure that allows massive audiences to easily find and access those options?
Modern sports fans have made one thing clear. They want variety, choice, and don’t want a single, rigid broadcast experience. In that sense, Klatt is right about the importance of presentation, just not in the way he suggests. ESPN’s creativity and roster depth across its platforms make it uniquely equipped to deliver those choices under one umbrella.
To defend his stance, Klatt leaned on a familiar argument often used when criticizing ESPN.
“Let’s face it; it’d be better if every network was giving an A-level broadcast versus a single presenter, in particular when that single presenter has a deep relationship with just one conference within college football,” Klatt said.
Klatt followed that by saying he wasn’t trying to make this a FOX Sports-versus-ESPN issue. In practice, that’s exactly what it became. You can’t criticize a system for its ties and then claim those singular ties are irrelevant.
Every network has conference relationships. FOX Sports works closely with the Big Ten and Big 12. ESPN has ties to the SEC and ACC, along with the Big 12 and Big Ten. CBS Sports also maintains a relationship with the Big Ten.
ESPN is not an SEC-only network. It has carried the SEC, ACC, American, Big 12, Big Ten and, of course, MACtion. More importantly, when fans think about where to watch college football, ESPN remains the default destination.
That’s why the College Football Playoff, despite ongoing debates about its format, doesn’t need to alter its broadcast structure. In most sports, fans are now forced to search across platforms, channels and streaming services just to find a game. That fragmentation will only worsen as more bidders enter the marketplace.
Fans want consistency, and the numbers prove it.
Alabama/Oklahoma averaged 14.9 million viewers on ABC/ESPN, the highest-rated first-round Playoff game in the two years of the expanded 12-team format and the fifth-most watched game of the season. Miami (FL)/Texas A&M drew 14.8 million viewers to open Saturday’s slate, ranking sixth overall for the season. Seven of the ten most-watched college football games this year aired on ABC/ESPN.
At a time when sports media is splintering across cable channels, streaming apps and subscription tiers, the Playoff’s greatest strength may be its simplest one: clarity. Fans know where to go. Casual viewers know exactly what button to press. The data confirms that simplicity still wins.
The Playoff will continue to be tweaked, debated and occasionally broken. That’s part of college football’s DNA. But the argument that more broadcast partners would improve presentation misses what modern audiences actually value.
Fans don’t want to hunt for the biggest games. They want them delivered consistently and at scale. ESPN has done that and continues to do so. Its Super Bowl-level approach is why the partnership remains secure, while other networks may not treat the Playoff with the same priority.
For all its flaws, the College Football Playoff got this part right. Until viewership tells a different story, there’s no reason to fix what isn’t broken.
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John Mamola is Barrett Media’s sports editor and daily sports columnist. He brings over two decades of experience (Chicago, Tampa/St Petersburg) in the broadcast industry with expertise in brand management, sales, promotions, producing, imaging, hosting, talent coaching, talent development, web development, social media strategy and design, video production, creative writing, partnership building, communication/networking with a long track record of growth and success. He is a five-time recognized top 20 program director in a major market via Barrett Medi’s Top 20 series and has been honored internally multiple times as station/brand of the year (Tampa, FL) and employee of the month (Tampa, FL) by iHeartMedia. Connect with John by email at John@BarrettMedia.com.
Great commentary and spot on.