Photo: Ken Lund. Source (Wikimedia Commons). License: CC BY-SA 2.0.
The schedule is the easy part of researching a College Football Playoff market. The harder checks are whether the exact event is available, what the contract says, and which result controls settlement. This guide separates the official CFP calendar from a dated Kalshi snapshot.
By Kalshi View Editorial Team
Source snapshot: August 1, 2026, rechecked October 19, 2026. Dates, assignments and market availability can change after that date.
Primary sources checked: the official College Football Playoff format and schedule page, the official Allegiant Stadium event page, the Kalshi rulebook and the CFTC record for KalshiEX. The page was rechecked with the season at its halfway point: the facts below were re-verified against fresh reads of the official CFP format page, the official CFP rankings and schedule page, and the Kalshi API between 15:02 and 15:07 UTC on October 19, 2026. The changes found are recorded in the recheck section.
The official CFP materials divide the postseason into four first-round games, four quarterfinals, two semifinals and one national championship. The 2026-27 college football playoff schedule therefore contains 11 games.
The checked August materials established dates, rounds and bowl assignments, but did not identify the participating teams or provide kickoff times. The October 19 recheck closed the timing question: the official CFP schedule page now lists kickoff times for eight of the eleven games, including a 7:30 p.m. ET championship start, as recorded in the recheck section below. Participating teams remain unknown until Selection Day. Readers should use the official CFP page for later bracket, team and timing updates rather than treating this dated schedule snapshot as permanent.
A recheck on October 19, 2026 found two material changes since the August 1 snapshot. The official CFP pages now publish kickoff times for the 2026-27 postseason, and Kalshi's College Football Playoff families have moved from event placeholders to actively trading markets with visible prices.
Kickoff times are now on the official schedule. The CFP rankings and schedule page listed the following start times in the October 19 read: the Friday, December 18 first-round game at 8:00 p.m. ET; the three Saturday, December 19 first-round games at 12:00 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. ET; the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl quarterfinal on December 30 at 7:30 p.m. ET; the Capital One Orange Bowl semifinal on January 14 at 7:30 p.m. ET; the Allstate Sugar Bowl semifinal on January 15 at 7:30 p.m. ET; and the national championship on Monday, January 25, 2027 at 7:30 p.m. ET. The three January 1 quarterfinals were still listed without kickoff times. In August, none of the eleven games carried a time.
The format page now carries updated documents and the full selection mechanics. The official 12-team format page links a 2026-27 CFP infographic dated September 30, 2026, replacing the July 27 version checked in August, plus a standardized bracket PDF dated July 14, 2026. The selection rules, re-read on October 19, divide the 12-team field into four automatic bids, one automatic bid for Notre Dame if it is ranked in the CFP Top 12 on Selection Day (in that case only six at-large bids are awarded), and seven at-large bids for the best remaining teams from any conference. Seeds 1-4 receive first-round byes and seeds 5-12 play first-round games at the higher seed's home stadium. The No. 1 seed selects its quarterfinal bowl site and its semifinal path, followed by the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds; the bracket then follows the committee's rankings with no re-seeding and no rematch avoidance. The page still did not publish a Selection Day date, and the rankings page's displayed Top 25 carried completed-season records rather than a current-season ranking, so the 2026-27 in-season rankings calendar remained unpublished as of this recheck.
Kalshi's CFP markets were live and trading. In the October 19, 2026 API read, the championship event KXNCAAF-27 was open with 52 markets, all 52 active, up from 50 in August. The highest-priced championship outcomes were Georgia at 16-17 cents, Ohio State at 14-15 cents, Miami (FL) at 14-15 cents, Notre Dame at 12-13 cents and Indiana at 7-8 cents. Every checked market carried a close time of February 23, 2027 and an expected expiration on the morning after the January 25 championship, with an early-close condition that the market "will close and expire after a winner is declared." The close time is a trading deadline, not a settlement date.
The qualifier event KXNCAAFPLAYOFF-26 was open with 57 active markets, each asking whether a named team "is one of the teams to qualify for the College Football Playoffs." The highest-priced qualifiers were Ohio State at 85-87 cents, Georgia at 84-88 cents, Notre Dame at 78-79 cents and Indiana at 78-83 cents, with Texas at 35-36 cents and Oregon at 15-18 cents. The seed family still listed exactly 12 open events, one per seed from No. 1 to No. 12. The qualifier event metadata lists ESPN, Fox Sports and The Wall Street Journal as settlement sources.
These prices are dated snapshot facts, not predictions or recommendations. They show the market families are live with active order books before Selection Day, not which teams will qualify. Availability, prices, fees and exact rules must still be verified on the current Kalshi event page before any order.
The 2027 College Football Playoff National Championship is scheduled for Monday, January 25 at Allegiant Stadium. The stadium's official event page independently confirms Las Vegas as the host city, alongside the CFP schedule.
That distinction matters for market research. The event date and venue provide useful calendar context, but they do not determine a Kalshi contract's trading cutoff, expiration time, settlement source or fee schedule. A championship-winner contract can also have different terms from a qualifier, seed, quarterfinal or semifinal contract.
Travel pages, ticket listings and social posts should not replace official schedule sources. They may repeat the correct date while omitting changes or misstating kickoff information. The official CFP and venue pages are the cleaner checks for event timing and location.
Kalshi's official API showed several separate college football market families when checked on August 1, 2026. This was a dated observation, not evidence that the same events, terms or availability will persist.
At the snapshot time, open-event queries returned one KXNCAAF event, one KXNCAAFPLAYOFF event, 12 KXNCAAFSEED events, one KXNCAAFQF event and one KXNCAAFSF event. The verified KXNCAAF-27 event response contained 50 active outcome markets at that time.
Those 50 outcomes were not the playoff field, a ranking, a list of qualified teams or a forecast of participants. They were market outcomes within a dated API response. Traders should not treat the number of listed outcomes as a claim about the eventual bracket. The October 19 recheck found that picture has changed: the championship event now carries 52 active markets with visible prices, the qualifier event has grown to 57 active team markets, and the seed family still has 12 open events; the dated numbers are recorded in the recheck section above.
Current availability, prices, fees, eligibility and exact settlement rules must come from the live Kalshi market page and the selected contract. The CFTC record confirms KalshiEX's designated-contract-market status; it does not establish event-specific availability, determine a result or make every sports contract available in every jurisdiction.
The official schedule should be one input, not the entire contract review. Before placing an order, traders should complete these checks:
Dated market notes may also appear on the @Kalshi_market channel, but channel posts are not substitutes for the live Kalshi event page, contract rules or official CFP sources.
The official schedule lists one first-round game on Friday, December 18, 2026, and three on Saturday, December 19. Quarterfinals are December 30 and January 1, semifinals are January 14 and 15, and the national championship is Monday, January 25, 2027. As of the October 19, 2026 recheck, the official schedule page lists kickoff times for eight of the eleven games, including the championship at 7:30 p.m. ET; the three January 1 quarterfinals were still unlisted.
The 2027 College Football Playoff National Championship is scheduled for Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Monday, January 25, 2027. Both the CFP schedule and Allegiant Stadium's official event page confirm the date and venue, and the October 19, 2026 recheck found the official page now listing a 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff. Traders should still recheck official sources for later updates.
Yes for the three checked families, as of the October 19, 2026 recheck: the championship event KXNCAAF-27 was open with 52 active markets, the qualifier event KXNCAAFPLAYOFF-26 was open with 57 active team markets, and the seed family listed 12 open events, one per seed. Those are dated availability and price observations, not promises that the same events remain open. Current availability and prices must come from Kalshi directly, and traders should review the exact event page and contract rules before trading.
Start with the exact event title, ticker and season. Then check the outcome definition, determination source, trading cutoff, settlement language, cancellation provisions, fees and eligibility requirements. Do not assume the CFP game date controls every contract deadline, or that championship, qualifier, seed and round-specific markets share the same rules. Also separate a market's close time from its settlement: the checked championship markets carry a February 2027 close time but an expected expiration on the morning after the January 25 game, with an early-close condition once a winner is declared.
Not financial advice. Prediction-market trading is speculative, and you can lose money. Do your own research.
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