Culture
As CFP meetings resume, the battle for control of the sport's future persists
— Reporting by Andrew Marchand, Nicole Auerbach, Stewart Mandel and Chris Vannini
College football’s future could receive some needed clarity this week. At least, that is the hope of many involved in planning the sport’s much-anticipated expanded postseason.
ESPN has agreed to terms with representatives for the College Football Playoff on a six-year, $7.8 billion extension to televise the event through 2031-32. But the commissioners and the presidents that run the CFP have not yet agreed on any aspects of the format beyond the 12-team model in place for the next two seasons, setting up a pivotal few days of meetings.
The terms agreement negotiated between ESPN and the firm CAA Evolution, which represents the CFP, has been in place for months, but CFP leaders still need to vote on the deal for it to take effect. Those leaders’ inability to reach consensus on topics they were hoping to settle before signing has been described by some executives involved as a “mess.”
Commissioners have said that they’re treating the Playoff for the 2026-27 season as a blank slate, with no special allegiance to any formats or decisions made over the past decade. But that approach means there’s a lot to settle, from automatic berths to revenue distribution, and outside onlookers are eager to see progress.
Meanwhile, ESPN executives are growing impatient and, as Puck business writer John Ourand first mentioned, will consider pulling the offer if the CFP fails to get its act together soon.
The Board of Managers, the university presidents and chancellors who make up the organization’s highest governing body, will meet virtually on Tuesday. The commissioners (and Notre Dame leadership) who make up the CFP’s Management Committee will meet in person in Dallas on Wednesday. Can they reach a consensus on the details for 2026 and beyond that have held up forward progress so far? And if not, what happens?
“What’s the alternative? No Playoff?” said a source involved in the discussions. “That’s not feasible. That would be a disaster.”
One possible alternative is what many across college sports feared when the SEC and Big Ten announced their new joint advisory group: An eventual breakaway of the richest and most powerful leagues in college athletics. Even if only serving as an implied threat, it could give the two conferences significant leverage in negotiations that will determine the future of college athletics.
Those attending the two meetings this week are preparing for a battle that could become cutthroat and contentious.
“The corporate, bottom-line world does not have the same expectations of collegiality from colleagues as higher education,” one said.
And when it comes to CFP negotiations, they clash.
It’s been nearly three years since a four-person subcommittee first proposed a 12-team model. It’s been more than 17 months since the CFP’s Board of Managers forced the commissioners back to the table and officially approved it. Yet very few of its most consequential issues are resolved, despite dozens of meetings of the commissioners, mostly at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport hotels. Those on the inside know how bad it looks to those on the outside.
“It’s embarrassing,” said one commissioner. “It was embarrassing (how long it took) to get to 12.”
Big-time college athletics has seen dramatic change over the last three years, with Oklahoma and Texas joining the SEC, USC and UCLA moving to the Big Ten and the subsequent implosion of the Pac-12. There has also been considerable turnover among the power conference commissioners; only the SEC’s Greg Sankey has been at the helm longer than three years. The Big Ten and Big 12 hired leaders with professional sports backgrounds.
Some commissioners in the room acknowledge that the mighty Big Ten and SEC have the leverage to chart a course forward, but have yet to throw it around. Those commissioners also say they don’t know what, exactly, the Big Ten and SEC want out of the remaining debates. The hope is more clarity at the meetings Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Pac-12’s implosion has accelerated a push to modify the 12-team model to five conference champions and seven at-large berths for the next two seasons, from the original structure that included six of each. The board is expected to vote on the 5+7 plan during its virtual meeting on Tuesday, according to three sources briefed on the process.
Washington State president Kirk Schulz, the Pac-12 representative and lone holdout in the board’s most recent meeting, is expected to propose that WSU and Oregon State receive revenue and voting powers similar to Power 4 schools in 2026 and beyond. It’s unclear whether there is much support for that, especially since future revenue and governance plans have not been determined for anyone.
Two sources involved in the approval process said they expect 5+7 to be the starting point of the format debate for 2026 and beyond but acknowledged that it may not be the final resolution. Sankey has suggested on numerous occasions a world with no automatic berths at all. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti has suggested reconsidering bracket sizes that were previously passed over, such as a 16-team field, people familiar with that discussion have told The Athletic.
On the topic of revenue distribution, it’s safe to assume that leagues will be rewarded both for the number of teams that make the field and for how far those teams advance, much like the payout model for the men’s NCAA tournament, one source briefed on the discussions said. How much participation and victories are worth remains unresolved, as is the starting amount allocated to each league. Currently the Power 5 leagues split about 80 percent of the CFP revenue, and each conference receives roughly the same share regardless of its appearance or performance in the postseason.
One source involved in the discussions said they expect the Big Ten and SEC to push for revenue shares larger than those given to the Big 12 and ACC, creating further separation between the two groups. The differentiation could be in the form of a larger percentage of revenue for the Big Ten and SEC on a per-league basis or on a per-school basis, the source said.
Then there’s the question of governance: Would the Big Ten and SEC, having newly formed a joint advisory group to “take a leadership role in developing solutions for a sustainable future of college sports,” push for more autonomy and/or more control of the enterprise? Decisions for 2026 and beyond won’t need a unanimous vote like they currently do, because the current contract does not roll over. And those two leagues could withhold support for the media deal until these issues are resolved to their liking.
ESPN “isn’t going to wait forever” for the Playoff to decide its future. (Photo: Stephen Lew / USA Today)
ESPN has not yet set a deadline for the CFP to ratify its deal, but as a source with knowledge of ESPN’s thinking said, “It isn’t going to wait forever.”
The current contract between the CFP and ESPN averages $609 million per year but escalates over time, which is why ESPN sees its new terms as a 28 percent increase, according to executives briefed on their discussions. The network is currently on the hook to pay around $800 million for each of the final two seasons of the original contract, and it values the four new first-round games at $100 million in total, making its outlay around $900 million over each of the next two years. If the new terms are ratified, the average payout over the life of the six-year deal comes to $1.3 billion a season through 2031-32, with the annual payment numbers escalating over the life of the contract.
ESPN also has the option to sublicense five CFP games per season, according to officials briefed on the terms of the agreement. At its discretion, ESPN can look at the market and decide if it wants to let other networks in for a fee at any point through 2032.
While ESPN has a terms agreement set, in the wake of multiple reports on the deal last week, some rival networks were being told by factions within CFP leadership they could submit a new bid, according to officials with knowledge of the discussions. But the likes of Fox, NBC and CBS have made no known offers. ESPN is still considered the clear frontrunner.
Fox and NBC, the two most likely networks to emerge as alternative destinations, have so far found the price of the potential CFP doesn’t pencil out, especially with the uncertainties surrounding the format. In the wake of the ESPN, Fox Sports and Warner Brothers Discovery “skinny bundle” partnership — in which the brands will offer their services direct-to-consumer for an estimated $40-$50 per month — NBC could possibly reevaluate a bid, but it would be quite a gamble by the CFP to wait and see whether NBC suddenly becomes interested, especially when the network would likely only be competing for a half package at best.
The CFP is part of ESPN’s five-year plan that includes a forthcoming new bid for NBA rights, a hope to continue its relationship with UFC and an interest in solving the regional sports network crisis affecting Major League Baseball, the NBA and the NHL. The $1.3 billion outlay per year sitting before the CFP is not a sum Disney CEO Bob Iger and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro can find between the seat cushions of a Space Mountain ride.
ESPN already has CFP rights built into its books and would like to retain the full arsenal of college football’s main event as it launches its new venture with Fox Sports and WBD Sports this fall and ahead of its own standalone direct-to-consumer launch in 2025. The network recently re-upped to be the home of the Division I women’s basketball tournament and most other NCAA championships for $920 million over eight years, giving it potential control of the postseason for all of college sports except for the Division I men’s basketball tournament, which is owned by CBS and WBD Sports. If it were to walk away from the CFP, ESPN would still retain the long-term college football footholds of SEC and ACC exclusivity, Big 12 rights and, for the next two seasons, at least a majority of the CFP.
It is against that media backdrop that CFP leaders will meet this week, needing to sort through the “mess” and find a path to alignment in order to collect the billions that Iger and Pitaro have on the table.
“We’re 10 months away from the start of the expanded Playoff,” Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick told The Athletic. “There’s a lot to do. You don’t flip a switch. The clock is ticking.”
(Top photo: Chris Williams / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Whatever you do, don’t think of a bird.
Now: What kind of bird are you not thinking about? A pigeon? A bald eagle? Something more poetic, like a skylark or a nightingale? In any case, would you say that this bird you aren’t thinking about is real?
Before you answer, read this poem, which is quite literally about not thinking of a bird.
Human consciousness is full of riddles. Neuroscientists, philosophers and dorm-room stoners argue continually about what it is and whether it even exists. For Wallace Stevens, the experience of having a mind was a perpetual source of wonder, puzzlement and delight — perfectly ordinary and utterly transcendent at the same time. He explored the mysteries and pleasures of consciousness in countless poems over the course of his long poetic career. It was arguably his great theme.
Stevens was born in 1879 and published his first book, “Harmonium,” in 1923, making him something of a late bloomer among American modernists. For much of his adult life, he worked as an executive for the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, rising to the rank of vice president. He viewed insurance less as a day job to support his poetry than as a parallel vocation. He pursued both activities with quiet diligence, spending his days at the office and composing poems in his head as he walked to and from work.
As a young man, Stevens dreamed of traveling to Europe, though he never crossed the Atlantic. In middle age he made regular trips to Florida, and his poems are frequently infused with ideas of Paris and Rome and memories of Key West. Others partake of the stringent beauty of New England. But the landscapes he explores, wintry or tropical, provincial or cosmopolitan, are above all mental landscapes, created by and in the imagination.
Are those worlds real?
Let’s return to the palm tree and its avian inhabitant, in that tranquil Key West sunset of the mind.
Until then, we find consolation in fangles.
When the director Rob Reiner cast his leads in the 1986 film “Stand by Me,” he looked for young actors who were as close as possible to the personalities of the four children they’d be playing. There was the wise beyond his years kid from a rough family (River Phoenix), the slightly dim worrywart (Jerry O’Connell), the cutup with a temper (Corey Feldman) and the sensitive, bookish boy.
Wil Wheaton was perfect for that last one, Gordie Lachance, a doe-eyed child who is ignored by his family in favor of his late older brother. Now, 40 years later, he’s traveling the country to attend anniversary screenings of the film, alongside O’Connell and Feldman, which has thrown him back into the turmoil that he felt as an adolescent.
Wheaton has channeled those emotions and his on-set memories into his latest project: narrating a new audiobook version of “The Body,” the 1982 Stephen King novella on which the film was based.
A few years ago, Wheaton started to float the idea of returning to the story that gave him his big break — that of a quartet of boys in 1959 Oregon, in their last days before high school, setting out to find a classmate’s dead body. “I’ve been telling the story of ‘Stand By Me’ since I was 12 years old,” he said.
But this time was different. Wheaton, who has narrated dozens of audiobooks, including Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One,” says he has come to enjoy narration more than screen acting. “I’m safe, I’m in the booth, nobody’s looking at me and I can just tell you a story.”
The fact that he, an older man looking back on his younger years, is narrating a story about an older man looking back on his younger years, is not lost on Wheaton. King’s original story is bathed in nostalgia. Coming to terms with death and loss is one of its primary themes.
Two days after appearing on stage at the Academy Awards as part of a tribute to Reiner — who was murdered in 2025 alongside his wife, Michele — Wheaton got on the phone to talk about recording the audiobook, reliving his favorite scenes from the film and reexamining a quintessential story of childhood loss through the lens of his own.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
“I felt really close to him, and my memory of him.”
Wheaton on channeling a co-star’s performance.
There’s this wonderful scene in “Stand By Me.” Gordie and Chris are walking down the tracks talking about junior high. Chris is telling Gordie, “I wish to hell I was your dad, because I care about you, and he obviously doesn’t.”
It’s just so honest and direct, in a way that kids talk to each other that adults don’t. And I think that one of the reasons that really sticks with people, and that piece really lands on a lot of audiences, and has for 40 years, is, just too many people have been Gordie in that scene.
That scene is virtually word for word taken from the text of the book. And when I was narrating that, I made a deliberate choice to do my best to recreate what River did in that scene.
“You’re just a kid,
Gordie–”
“I wish to fuck
I was your father!”
he said angrily.
“You wouldn’t go around
talking about takin those stupid shop courses if I was!
It’s like
God gave you something,
all those stories
you can make up, and He said:
This is what we got for you, kid.
Try not to lose it.
But kids lose everything
unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks
are too fucked up to do it
then maybe I ought to.”
I watched that scene a couple of times because I really wanted — I don’t know why it was so important to me to — well, I know: because I loved him, and I miss him. And I wanted to bring him into this as best as I could, right?
So I was reading that scene, and the words are identical to the script. And I had this very powerful flashback to being on the train tracks that day in Cottage Grove, Oregon. And I could see River standing next to them. They’re shooting my side of the scene and there’s River, right next to the camera, doing his off-camera dialogue, and there’s the sound guy, and there’s the boom operator. There’s my key light.
I could hear and feel it. It was the weirdest thing. It’s like I was right back there.
I was able to really take in the emotional memory of being Gordie in all of those scenes. So when I was narrating him and I’m me and I’m old with all of this experience, I just drew on what I remembered from being that little boy and what I remember of those friendships and what they meant to me and what they mean to me today.
“Rob gave me a gift. Rob gave me a career.”
Wheaton recalls the “Stand By Me” director’s way with kids on set, as well as his recent Oscars tribute.
Rob really encouraged us to be kids.
Jerry tells the most amazing story about that scene, where we were all sitting around, and doing our bit, and he improvised. He was just goofing around — we were just playing — and he said something about spitting water at the fat kid.
We get to the end of the scene, and he hears Rob. Rob comes around from behind the thing, and he goes, “Jerry!” And Jerry thinks, “Oh no, I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble because I improvised, and I’m not supposed to improvise.”
The context for Jerry is that he had been told by the adults in his life, “Sit on your hands and shut up. Stop trying to be a cutup. Stop trying to be funny. Stop disrupting people. Just be quiet.” And Jerry thinks, “Oh my God. I didn’t shut up. I’m in trouble. I’m gonna get fired.”
Rob leans in to all of us, and Rob says, “Hey, guys, do you see that? More of that. Do that!”
The whole time when you’re a kid actor, you’re just around all these adults who are constantly telling you to grow up. They’re mad that you’re being a kid. Rob just created an environment where not only was it supported that we would be kids — and have fun, and follow those kid instincts and do what was natural — it was expected. It was encouraged. We were supposed to do it.
They chanted together:
“I don’t shut up,
I grow up.
And when I look at you I throw up.”
“Then your mother goes around the corner
and licks it up,”
I said, and hauled ass out of there,
giving them the finger over my shoulder as I went.
I never had any friends later on
like the ones I had when I was twelve.
Jesus, did you?
When we were at the Oscars, I looked at Jerry. And we looked at this remarkable assemblage of the most amazingly talented, beautiful artists and storytellers. We looked around, and Jerry leans down, and he said, “We all got our start with Rob Reiner. He trusted every single one of us.”
And to stand there for him, when I really thought that I would be standing with him to talk about this stuff — it was a lot.
“I was really really really excited — like jumping up and down.”
The scene Wheaton was most looking forward to narrating: the tale of Lard Ass Hogan.
I was so excited to narrate it. It’s a great story! It’s a funny story. It’s such a lovely break — it’s an emotional and tonal shift from what’s happening in the movie.
I know this as a writer: You work to increase and release tension throughout a narrative, and Stephen King uses humor really effectively to release that tension. But it also raises the stakes, because we have these moments of joy and these moments of things being very silly in the midst of a lot of intensity.
That’s why the story of Lard Ass Hogan is so fun for me to tell. Because in the middle of that, we stop to do something that’s very, very fun, and very silly and very celebratory.
“Will you shut up and let him tell it?”
Teddy hollered.
Vern blinked.
“Sure. Yeah.
Okay.”
“Go on, Gordie,”
Chris said. “It’s not really much—”
“Naw,
we don’t expect much from a wet end like you,”
Teddy said,
“but tell it anyway.”
I cleared my throat. “So anyway.
It’s Pioneer Days,
and on the last night
they have these three big events.
There’s an egg-roll for the little kids and a sack-race for kids that are like eight or nine,
and then there’s the pie-eating contest.
And the main guy of the story
is this fat kid nobody likes
named Davie Hogan.”
When I narrate this story — whenever there is a moment of levity or humor, whenever there are those brief little moments that are the seasoning of the meal that makes it all so real and relatable — yes, it was very important to me to capture those moments.
I’m shifting in my chair, so I can feel each of those characters. It’s something that doesn’t exist in live action. It doesn’t exist in any other media.
“I feel the loss.”
Wheaton remembers River Phoenix.
The novella “The Body” is very much about Gordie remembering Chris. It’s darker, and it’s more painful, than the movie is.
I’ve been watching the movie on this tour and seeing River a lot. I remember him as a 14- and 15-year-old kid who just seemed so much older, and so much more experienced and so much wiser than me, and I’m only a year younger than him.
What hurts me now, and what I really felt when I was narrating this, is knowing what River was going through then. We didn’t know. I still don’t know the extent of how he was mistreated, but I know that he was. I know that adults failed him. That he should have been protected in every way that matters. And he just wasn’t.
And I, like Gordie, remember a boy who was loving. So loving, and generous and cared deeply about everyone around him, all the time. Who deserved to live a full life. Who had so much to offer the world. And it’s so unfair that he’s gone and taken from us. I had to go through a decades-long grieving process to come to terms with him dying.
Near the end
of 1971,
Chris
went into a Chicken Delight in Portland
to get a three-piece Snack Bucket.
Just ahead of him,
two men started arguing
about which one had been first in line. One of them pulled a knife.
Chris,
who had always been the best of us
at making peace,
stepped between them and was stabbed in the throat.
The man with the knife had spent time in four different institutions;
he had been released from Shawshank State Prison
only the week before.
Chris died almost instantly.
It is a privilege that I was allowed to tell this story. I get to tell Gordie Lachance’s story as originally imagined by Stephen King, with all of the experience of having lived my whole adult life with the memory of spending three months in Gordie Lachance’s skin.
Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights offbeat television shows that began as comic books. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the comics and their screen versions.
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