INDIANAPOLIS — The College Football Playoff’s ambitions for expansion stalled on Monday, when the sport’s leading power brokers proved unable to agree on a plan almost seven months after some of them publicly proposed a 12-team format.
The playoff, which currently features four teams each season, could still grow in the coming years and inject hundreds of millions of dollars a year more into the richest conferences in college sports. But the addition of games as soon as the 2024 season is increasingly unlikely after months of turmoil, with the negotiations complicated at different moments by disputes over potential compositions of the playoff field, fears of protracted seasons and mistrust that flowed from a surprise round of conference membership shuffles.