If you’re looking for Saturday’s college football games on TV and streaming, you’ll probably be quite surprised to find that TNT, TBS and Max are airing first-round contests including SMU-Penn State and Clemson-Texas.

You’ll probably be even more confused when you flip these channels to see what looks like an ESPN broadcast.

Well, here’s the deal: Back in May, TNT inked a five-year deal to sublicense select College Football Playoff content from ESPN. This means that while ESPN produces the shows, TNT is actually allowed to broadcast them.

Here’s how it works, according to the College Football Playoff:

TNT Sports will present two first-round College Football Playoff games in the 2024 and 2025 seasons. In addition to the first round games, TNT Sports will add two quarterfinal games each year, beginning with the 2026 season through the 2028 season. TNT will be the primary broadcaster televising the sublicensed CFP games, along with other TNT Sports distribution platforms.

ESPN will present all other College Football Playoff games on its networks, including the annual CFP National Championship Game. ESPN will continue to manage the sponsorship program for the presentation of the CFP.

That kind of makes sense considering ESPN has a lot of other commitments this time of year, including college basketball, NBA games and NFL games. There are only a limited number of channels that make it possible to reach a nationwide audience. That’s why TNT was only too happy to intervene.

Hopefully this clears things up!