Brett Yormark sees 5+11 College Football Playoff format as 'the fair approach'

A conversation that has continued on over the past month is that of the new, next format for the College Football Playoff. Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark was the next to comment on it this morning with him further explaining he and his league’s stance on what’s to come in the CFP.

Yormark, appearing on ‘Get Up’ on Thursday morning while announcing the Big 12 and Big Ten’s new partnership with PayPal, shared his opinion as part of the discussions for what the right system is for the College Football Playoff. He began by crediting what came of last year’s expansion from the four-team to the dozen-team one.

“Well, to your point, I thought this past season was fantastic,” said Yormark to ESPN’s Mike Greenberg. “I thought the College Football Playoff, the expanded format, created the excitement and drama we were all looking for. And I don’t think it needs to be reimagined or reinvented.”

However, there are multiple options out there to expand the field again to either fourteen or sixteen teams. Each varies when it comes to seeding qualifiers in how the bracket could actually fall.

As for the Big 12, Yormark has made his preference clear with the model of 5+11, with five automatic bids and eleven left for at-larges to get to the total of 16. That’s what he believes to be the most fair format of them all and, because of that, should be the fan’s preferred model as well.

“To your point, maybe there’s some changes, modifications to make it even better,” said Yormark. “Obviously, it’s been very public about what the future format might look like. I do like a 16-team format. I think more access is good and it’s not dilutive. But I’ve been very adamant about 5+11 and I think that is the fair approach to take. And I know fans want it. They want it. They want fairness. They want teams to win it on the field and they don’t want anything predetermined. So I’m all in on the 5+11 and I’ll keep doubling down on it.”

Big 12, Big Ten announce partnership with PayPal to pay out revenue share

Colleges are preparing for revenue-sharing with student-athletes beginning on July 1st. In anticipation of that, the Big 12 and Big Ten have announced a new partnership with PayPal to pay out their student-athletes.

Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark appeared on Get Up, alongside PayPal CEO Alex Chriss, on Thursday. There, Yormark dove into what made the partnership a good idea for the conference at this point in time.

“July 1 starts rev-share with our student-athletes,” Yormark said. “A long time coming and well deserved from a conference perspective, but I speak beyond just the Big 12. I speak for all of collegiate athletics; we need a reliable payment platform to distribute money to our student-athletes.”

“We’ve [Big 12 and PayPal] been at this for over 14 months,” Yormark said. “Trying to figure out if there was a place and a point of entry for PayPal in this world of collegiate athletics, and we found it on the heels of the [House] settlement and rev-share. Truly excited about it. When you think about PayPal and Venmo, probably the most culturally relevant payment platform globally. 100 million customers, including consumers and merchants. It’s a big opportunity for the Big 12. Big for college athletics and I truly believe that the product is ubiquitous across all campuses, and today, yes, we’re announcing two conferences, but it’s going to go well beyond that moving forward.”