Boise State AD hopeful CFP expansion is in place by 2024, updates season ticket sales
Boise State Athletic Director Jeramiah Dickey said Friday night that it was a “pleasant surprise” that the College Football Playoff will expand to 12 teams.
“Anytime you can provide hope for your fan base, it makes every game meaningful and it makes seasons that much more meaningful,” Dickey said.
The College Football Playoff Board of Managers voted last week to expand the number of CFP teams from four to 12 and to implement the new format by 2026. There’s also a chance it could be in place by 2024 or 2025.
Dickey said he doesn’t know whether the logistics will be worked out in the next couple of years, but he hopes the new format is in place as soon as possible.
Under the new format, the six highest-ranked conference champions and the next six highest-ranked teams will make the playoff. Boise State would have a chance to be in the mix if it were the Mountain West champion, Dickey said.
“The fact is there’s opportunity now,” he said. “That wasn’t the case until Cincinnati made it last year, and it took them three consecutive years of great seasons to do it. The postseason is important, especially for Group of Five teams that are already dealing with limited resources.”
The CFP Management Committee — which Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson is a member of — met in Dallas on Thursday to hammer out some of the details. Among the issues being discussed is how revenue will be split between 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame, and when and where games will be played.
Season ticket sales update
Boise State has sold 17,403 season tickets this year, according to Dickey.
Renewal rates were around 88 percent, Dickey said, and Boise State has sold 2,216 new season tickets this years, surpassing its goal of 2,000. The goal is now 3,000, Dickey said.
Dickey also said season tickets have been sold to 243 recent Boise State graduates, and sales of mini-plans — packages that include two or three games — have jumped from 269 last year to 1,069 this season.
The Broncos’ total number of season tickets is down from the 17,548 Boise State sold last year, but it’s still an improvement from the 16,580 that were sold in 2019. There is no season ticket sales data for 2020 because only a limited number of fans were allowed to attend games, a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This story was originally published September 9, 2022 at 6:32 PM.
