You’ll need to see it
As we reach the penultimate weekend of the college football regular season, there’s no reason to shy away from looking ahead to the College Football Playoff and how we might watch the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
Although I’m fairly certain we talked about this multiple times in the past, I’ve started to see a number of people wondering how the broadcast rights work for the playoff — especially as it pertains to a game inside Notre Dame Stadium. So let’s make this very simple.
ESPN holds ALL rights to the college football playoff games — from the first round all the way until the national championship game. In holding those rights, ESPN agreed to a deal with TNT Sports to share in the broadcasting duties.
TNT Sports will present two first-round College Football Playoff games during the 2024 and 2025 seasons. In addition to the first-round games, TNT Sports will add two quarterfinal games each year –beginning with the 2026 season through the 2028 season. TNT will be the primary network televising the sublicensed CFP games, among additional TNT Sports distribution platforms.
College Football Playoff Schedule
First Round
- Friday, December 20 — HOME site — ESPN/TNT
- Saturday, December 21 — HOME site — ESPN/TNT
- Saturday, December 21 — HOME site — ESPN/TNT
- Saturday, December 21 — HOME site — ESPN/TNT
Quarterfinals
- Tuesday, December 31 — Fiesta Bowl 7:30 PM — ESPN
- Wednesday, January 1 — Peach Bowl 1:00 PM — ESPN
- Wednesday, January 1 — Rose Bowl 5:00 PM — ESPN
- Wednesday, January 1 — Sugar Bowl 8:45 PM — ESPN
Semifinals
- Thursday, January 9 — Orange Bowl 7:30 PM — ESPN
- Friday, January 10 — Cotton Bowl 7:30 PM — ESPN
Championship Game
- Monday, January 20 — Mercedes Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Georgia 8:00 PM — ESPN
Back to Notre Dame…
Should the Irish get a home playoff game this year, it’s hard to say if it will be the lone game on Friday night, or one of the other three on Saturday. While the day and time is hard to say, I’m damn near certain it will be ESPN that broadcasts the game, and not TNT.
Honestly, I’m very excited about the possibility of ESPN broadcasting from inside Notre Dame Stadium. It’s not that I have any love for ESPN — far from it. What I’m excited about is the possibility of an improved experience for Irish fans from NBC moving forward. Perhaps the viewing experience via ESPN will be so good, that NBC will make positive changes to its own broadcast of Notre Dame football games as they hold regular season home game rights through the 2029 season.
And even if that’s not the case — it will just be nice to get something different after 33 years with one network. Now… we just need the Irish to beat Army on Saturday and Southern Cal next week, and all of this will actually matter.