America finds out: Why the first CFP rankings of the season drop on election night
A game official runs across the College Football Playoff logo on Kyle Field during the third quarter in the first round of the College Football Playoff between Miami and Texas A&M, Dec. 20, 2025, in College Station, Texas. Credit: AP/Sam Craft
This is the night America finds out.
Who controls the balance of power in the House and Senate? Of course.
But also, who the winners and losers are in the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season.
Whether it's a brilliant ESPN attempt at counterprogramming is up for debate. What's known is that this schedule has been locked in for some time.
Just as U.S. elections are held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, the CFP puts out six sets of rankings every season on a strict schedule. The final set comes on the Sunday after conference title games — the first Sunday in December — and the schedule works backward from there. Those reveals are on Tuesday nights, which means the first one lands on election night.
It's no coincidence for a network paying around $1.3 billion to televise the playoff that its hourlong bracket show (half an hour on most nights) will feed into ESPN's primetime programming. That's typically a basketball game, but this week, it's a three-hour studio show that will, undoubtedly, be devoted to massive numbers of experts and insiders breaking down the rankings while CNN, Fox News and the rest are doing the same about election results.
And, much like the election, these rankings will spit out their share of winners and losers and people crying foul. This might also sound familiar: It could take weeks, if not months, to finally figure out who the ultimate victor is.
Meanwhile, the NBA over the past several years has gone dark on election night and will be again this year, but the NHL has a full slate of 11 games Tuesday.
