The expansion of the College Football Playoff to 24 teams has drawn outrage over how it diminishes one of the best regular seasons in sports.
But the expansion also could have a drastic impact on a sacred, beloved postseason tradition.
What happens to bowl games?
Ever since "The Granddaddy of Them All" in the Rose Bowl started it all more than a century ago, bowl games have served as a reward for a successful season, a chance to face a comparable opponent in a unique matchup and an opportunity to play one final game. Even as the sport shifted from using bowls to crown national champions to a definitive title game and eventually a playoff, bowl games endured as the perfect holiday treat in December.
Yes, schools are considering it
But with the playoff field doubling next season, bowls outside the CFP suddenly find themselves in a precarious position. Teams that otherwise would have headed to those games will instead become playoff participants, disrupting the entire bowl ecosystem.
USA TODAY Sports spoke with several bowl game executives about what the future holds. They remain confident bowls will survive, but admit they don’t yet know what that future will look like as they wait for the next steps.
“There's so many unanswered questions,” Music City Bowl president and CEO Scott Ramsey said.
The most obvious domino is that there will be fewer bowl-eligible teams available.
Outside of the CFP, the 2026 season has 36 bowl games, requiring 72 non-playoff teams in addition to the 12 playoff selections.
The Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, Peach and Cotton Bowls are safely part of the CFP quarterfinal and semifinal rotation. But adding 12 teams to the playoff removes would-be participants from top-tier non-CFP games such as the Pop-Tarts, Citrus, ReliaQuest, Alamo and Gator bowls. The trickle-down effect could leave fewer bowl-eligible teams for everybody else.
“If you do the math, that obviously means 12 less teams available for the bowl system. So for that reason, we will obviously see less bowl games,” said Bowl Season executive director Nick Carparelli.
Some bowl games will unfortunately end. Which ones remains up in the air.
The expanded playoff will include more Power conference teams, notably from the SEC and Big Ten, drastically shrinking the available pool. Had the 24-team field been implemented in 2025, the SEC could have placed as many as seven teams in the playoff, leaving just three for bowl games.
Bowl games have contractual obligations with conferences, along with contingency plans involving other leagues. But without enough available teams, the entire system gets squeezed. Group of Six bowls aren't excluded.
Ultimately, bowl games don’t get to decide their own future. Conferences must determine how many postseason spots and which tie-ins they want, with broadcast partners also playing a significant role. Those conversations are only beginning.
“The conferences have to decide: Do they want to continue play for teams that do not qualify for the playoff? They've all got to come together and say yes, we want to do this,” said Gator Bowl President and CEO Greg McGarity. “Everybody kind of understands that it's going to be difficult for 37 bowls to exist in today's environment.”
If you’re not part of the quarterfinal and semifinal rotation, it can sound like death is knocking on the door.
However, don’t call the morgue just yet.
“The fact does not change that the majority of teams who will be participating in the postseason will be in a bowl game,” Carparelli said. “College football needs bowl season.”
College football not only needs bowls. Bowl games have repeatedly proven they can survive.
This isn’t the first time the system has been forced to adjust. It happened when the BCS arrived, then again with the creation and expansion of the College Football Playoff.
Despite every change that appeared capable of diminishing them, bowls are still standing, including 14 created before the 21st century.
“They're big parties and really do a lot of service for college football,” said Sports San Diego CEO Mark Neville, who oversees the Holiday and Poinsettia Bowl.
Their importance has faded in some respects, with player opt-outs and falling attendance hurting the cause. But one key factor in their survival hasn’t disappeared: viewership.
The 2025-26 bowl season was one of the most watched in recent years. ESPN averaged 3.1 million viewers across its non-CFP bowls, the highest mark since the 2015-16 season. The Citrus Bowl between Texas and Michigan drew 9.1 million viewers, while BYU and Georgia Tech attracted 8.7 million for the Pop-Tarts Bowl.
Both ranked among the 30 most-watched college football games of the season, and both outdrew two first-round College Football Playoff games.
“Bowls of our nature have really become a TV event, and we accept that and understand that,” McGarity said.
The crowds might not be as large, but networks and sponsors are happy to see that many eyeballs. It suggests those midweek windows in the dead period between the end of the regular season and the heart of the playoff remain valuable television real estate. Bowls also provide a natural lead-in to the CFP, keeping attention on the sport throughout December.
“We certainly feel there remains a need for post-season opportunities for teams. There are clearly still good TV windows to be had as well,” Nick Dawson, senior vice president, college sports programming and acquisitions for ESPN told reporters.
But does that viewership hold when more of the best teams are in the playoff, playing on campuses instead of in bowls? And if not, how do bowls keep viewers interested in matchups featuring unranked teams?
Future of bowl games? Look at Pop-Tarts Bowl
Steve Hogan is at the helm of some of the sport’s most beloved bowl games. He’s the CEO of Florida Citrus Sports, which runs the Pop-Tarts and Cheez-It Citrus bowls, games that have been around for decades but have found new ways to become wildly popular.
Simply put, they go all out.
The Pop-Tarts Bowl has leaned into the absurdity of its edible mascots and everything surrounding them. The Cheez-It Citrus Bowl has done the same with Prince Cheddward and the now-iconic snack dousing.
Other bowls have taken notice, increasingly leaning into fun, humor and spectacle. Hogan believes that approach is critical to their future.
“It's a content factory, and you have to embrace it that way,” he said. “These are opportunities that you have to embrace. That and content and fun and you know social engagement, influencers, the whole gamut needs to be a part of it.
“You're seeing some good football, but people are just having fun, and so I think that has to be the recipe going forward,” Hogan said.
Bowl committees are considering other possibilities, too: a larger pool of potential teams, greater sponsor involvement, shorter travel for participants and additional incentives. Ideas aren’t in short supply.
For now, though, they’re largely hypothetical because bowl officials still don’t know what the sport’s biggest stakeholders will want.
“Everybody can throw out ideas, but I think until we have those conversations and see where everybody's positions are, what's important to them in the new iteration, it's just too hypothetical,” Ramsey said.
“Unfortunately, we are not in control,” McGarity added. “We can advocate for that. We can talk to our peers about that. We can just illustrate how important and how advantageous it is. But you're not in control of it, so you just have to wait and see what the powers that be, what they want to do, and then be able to react to that. But you certainly can't just sit back and wait and not do anything.”
All of the executives expect those conversations to ramp up in the coming weeks and months, with Carparelli believing everyone will know what next year's bowl season looks like in early 2027.
Whatever happens, there will be more change.
It wasn’t that long ago the Citrus Bowl and other major bowls routinely featured top-10 teams with 11-1 or 10-2 records. Going forward, those games could feature 8-4 or even 7-5 teams.
“We still believe there's a very successful bubble to be played outside of the playoff,” Hogan said. “How we put them together is what I'm excited to figure out, because I think that's where we're going to continue to see real robust success.”
So while the wake for the regular season is underway, bowl committees don’t want anyone planning theirs.
Even amid all the uncertainty, there remains confidence bowl season will survive.
It’s far from the end of eating the Pop-Tarts mascot or reveling in mayonnaise baths.
“This will not be the last bowl season as we know it. I mean, it's going to be different, but again, the bowl system is still going to continue,” Neville said. “Nobody celebrates college football better than the bowl games.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 24-team CFP is coming. What happens to college football’s bowl games now?
