If the College Football Playoff is going to expand to 12 teams as early as the 2024 season, everyone involved in the existing 12-year contract must unanimously agree to changing the terms, and the CFP and the Rose Bowl are still negotiating the historic game's role in the new model, a top Rose Bowl official told ESPN on Wednesday in an exclusive interview.

Laura Farber, the chair of the Rose Bowl Management Committee, said the game would like to maintain its exclusive broadcast window on January 1 at 2 p.m. PT in years that it would also host a CFP semifinal, but the Rose Bowl hasn't heard back from the CFP in two weeks.

The discussion is centered around one of the most lucrative television windows in college sports, and while it's not the only issue surrounding early expansion, it's one of the most complicated. The Rose Bowl seems willing to temporarily concede its relationship with the Big Ten and Pac-12 to host a quarterfinal game in 2024 and 2025, but in return, it's asking for assurances in the new contract. While the CFP is going to expand no later than the start of the 2026 season, there is no contract in place beyond the current 12-year deal, which runs through the 2025 season.

"The possibility of early entry to an expanded College Football Playoff is not something we're against," Farber said. "We continue to work with the CFP on this issue. We last spoke two weeks ago to the CFP, but have not heard back from the CFP."

CFP executive director Bill Hancock told ESPN "nothing has changed" since they last spoke with Rose Bowl officials.

In the proposed 12-team format for 2024, the Cotton and Orange bowls would stay true to the current agreement and host semifinals, and in 2025, the Fiesta and Peach bowls would also host semifinals as currently planned, but the Rose Bowl would have to agree to relinquish its partnership with the Big Ten and Pac-12 in order to host quarterfinal games that might not feature teams from those leagues. When the new CFP deal begins in 2026, the playoff could have quarterfinal games played on New Year's Day, which would compete against the Rose Bowl in the same time slot once every three years if that's the rotation the CFP decides on.