Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti used the conference’s spring meetings this week to make clear that his league is not backing away from its most aggressive College Football Playoff proposal: a 24-team field that he says has broad support across the Big Ten and would make the regular season more meaningful, not less.

Petitti’s comments, delivered during meetings in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, sharpened the next phase of the playoff debate after the sport’s power conferences failed earlier this year to agree on expansion beyond the current 12-team format. The Big Ten’s position is now explicit: the league wants a much larger bracket, sees little appeal in a 16-team compromise without a longer-term commitment to go bigger, and believes expanded access would increase the number of November games with postseason consequences.

“We feel strongly about it,” Petitti said, according to reports from the meetings, while describing the Big Ten’s internal commitment to a 24-team model and continued talks with other conferences. The stance places the Big Ten in alignment with growing support from the ACC and Big 12, while leaving the SEC as the central conference whose agreement would be needed for any major structural change.

The current CFP format includes 12 schools. Under the official CFP structure, the field consists of the champions from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC, the highest-ranked champion from the Group of Six conferences, and seven at-large teams. The four highest-ranked teams receive first-round byes, while seeds No. 5 through No. 12 play first-round games at campus sites or other locations designated by the higher seeds. The quarterfinals and semifinals are then played through major bowl sites before the national championship game.

That format remains in place for the 2026 season after the commissioners and Notre Dame leadership failed to reach consensus earlier this year. The Associated Press reported in January that the CFP would stay at 12 teams for the coming season after the SEC and Big Ten could not agree on whether to expand to 16 or 24 teams. At the time, CFP executive director Rich Clark framed another year under the current structure as an opportunity for conferences to better assess whether further change was needed.

Petitti’s argument for 24 teams is built around access and late-season value. He has contended that more teams in the playoff hunt would make games involving second-tier contenders more consequential, rather than preserving high stakes only for the handful of schools still chasing a top seed or automatic berth. In the Big Ten’s view, a broader field could turn more rivalry games and mid-November conference matchups into de facto playoff-positioning events.

The proposal also carries significant structural consequences. A 24-team bracket would require decisions on campus-site inventory, television windows, athlete workload, bowl integration and the future of conference championship games. Petitti has acknowledged that eliminating or reworking league title games could become part of the tradeoff if the sport moves toward a larger national postseason. That issue is especially sensitive because championship games generate major revenue and remain important television properties for the Power Four leagues.

According to Associated Press reporting from the Big Ten meetings, Petitti said the league has shifted away from earlier concepts built around multiple automatic bids for specific conferences and toward a version that would include 23 at-large selections by the CFP committee plus one spot reserved for a Group of Six program. In that version, the first two rounds would be played on campus. Petitti has argued that the model would create meaningful tiers throughout the standings: first-round byes, first-round home games and the final fight simply to get into the bracket.

The SEC’s position remains the key variable. Commissioner Greg Sankey has previously been associated with a more cautious approach, including support for a 16-team format, though he has also indicated that some SEC coaches and athletic directors may be open to discussing 24 teams. That possible movement matters because the Big Ten and SEC now hold outsized leverage over the playoff’s future format and revenue structure.

For the Big Ten, the politics of expansion are also tied to the conference’s own transformation. The league now stretches from the West Coast to the East Coast after adding USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington, creating a national footprint and a larger pool of brands with playoff expectations. A 24-team format would likely increase access for programs that can win eight, nine or 10 games in a deep league but may struggle to land inside a 12-team field if they miss a championship game or lose a late head-to-head matchup.

Coaches inside the conference have not all framed the proposal the same way. Ohio State coach Ryan Day has said a 24-team playoff may be good for college football generally while leaving open whether it is best for a program already built to compete regularly for top seeds. Other Big Ten coaches have been more openly supportive because a larger bracket would create more realistic postseason paths for programs outside the sport’s annual national-title favorites.

The larger debate turns on a familiar divide in college sports: access versus exclusivity. Supporters of a bigger playoff say it would keep more fan bases engaged, create additional high-value television inventory and reduce the all-or-nothing pressure attached to a single regular-season loss. Skeptics warn that a much larger field could soften the urgency of marquee regular-season games, add physical strain to a long season and further separate power-conference programs from the rest of the sport.

The next major checkpoint is the deadline for deciding future formats. Associated Press reporting from the spring meetings noted that the 2026 season will remain a 12-team playoff and that the deadline to decide the 2027 format is Dec. 1. That gives commissioners, university presidents, media partners and bowl stakeholders several months to determine whether there is a workable compromise or whether the sport will continue with the current model.

For now, Petitti’s message leaves little ambiguity about the Big Ten’s negotiating posture. The conference is not merely entertaining a 24-team CFP as one option among many; it is presenting the model as the best long-term structure for a sport that has already moved beyond the four-team era and is still adjusting to the commercial and competitive consequences of expansion.