The College Football Playoff (CFP) is the postseason event that determines college football’s national champion on the gridiron each year. Over 30 million people tuned in to watch the 2026 CFP National Championship in January — a higher viewership than Game 7 of the 2025 World Series and the 2026 NBA Finals.
The pressure of the CFP National Championship isn’t just felt by the teams that have worked all season to make it to that hallowed field. It’s also felt by the CFP organization, including the Events & Hospitality team, whose annual responsibility it is to deliver an experience of unrivaled excellence to the CFP’s roster of VIP guests.
After all, when your registered guests include hundreds of VIPs — conference commissioners, university presidents and athletic directors, television executives, key stakeholders, and selection committee members (Mark Dantonio, Gus Malzahn, and pro football Hall of Famer Randall McDaniel, to name a few) — you need to bring your A-game.
Initially, the Events & Hospitality team juggled multiple types of RSVPs, registration needs, and payment processes. The mix of tools they were using to handle it all was pricey, wasn’t built to handle secure transactions, and lacked the end-user experience worthy of a high-profile organization.
So when one of CFP’s vendors highlighted Jotform’s ease of use, the Events & Hospitality team quickly learned how flexible it could be for its VIP registration process. Simultaneously, they paired a Square integration with their registration form, creating a unified workflow.
In short order, registrations for the CFP National Championship, automated guest notifications, secure payments, and pre- and post-event financial reconciliation became a branded experience worthy of the CFP.
College Football Playoff case study results at a glance
Over 50%
The Jotform & Square toolset yielded more than 50% in savings for the CFP’s Events & Hospitality Team (over the previous registration solution).
30+
The Events & Hospitality team manages more than 30 annual events, from Bowl meetings to Volunteer of the Year voting.
0
No developers are needed to facilitate event registrations and deposits. Jotform & Square empower the team to work more efficiently so they can use the extra time for what they do best.
Multiple systems contribute to a lesser customer experience
Registering important guests, managing invitations, handling logistics, and scheduling activities are pretty common pain points for every events team.
However, the CFP’s Allison Doughty (senior director of Events & Hospitality) and Sam Berman (Events & Hospitality coordinator) aren’t your everyday events team.
It’s their responsibility to coordinate the playoff’s lodging and meeting logistics and facilitate VIP guest experiences for the national championship game (in addition to key events during the year). But the tools they used to handle game registrations, PCI-certified payment collection, and proper credentialing were expensive, siloed, and insufficient.
The fragmented approach meant that guests had to navigate multiple platforms during registration; as a result, guest information lived across multiple systems. Payments added another layer of complexity. They were collected separately from registrations (payment tracking relied on spreadsheets and email), forcing the team to spend time manually invoicing some attendees after registration.
As the organization and the expectations grew, balancing operational efficiency and a premium guest experience became increasingly difficult. Doughty and Berman found themselves spending valuable time reconciling information rather than prepping their operations for CFP National Championship weekend.
One branded workflow powered by Jotform and Square
In a perfect world, the VIP guests to the CFP National Championship would complete their registration and payments in one seamless, branded experience — reflective of a top-flight organization. This would also give staff better visibility into every transaction.
“We were using a mixture of platforms and workflows,” explained Doughty, “different websites, and some things we were just handling internally via email. So we were really looking for one operational system.”
A trial of Jotform led to the discovery that they could safely collect credit card information through the Square integration. And when they upgraded to Jotform Enterprise, they gained access to unlimited forms and the ability to white-label their forms in a CFP-branded workflow.
Before long, Doughty and Berman had consolidated complex logistics like registration, hotel, transportation, and more into a single workflow.
Instead of asking busy VIPs to navigate multiple systems, the CFP now provides one branded registration experience where VIP attendees can
- RSVP
- Select event options and tickets
- Receive automated email confirmations and reminders
- Complete payments in one place
Doughty was pumped. “Jotform was great for us because it accomplished everything we were looking to do using different platforms, all in one solution.”
Square simplifies payment collection
“Squaring the circle” for the CFP was the ability to embed secure payment collection directly into the game registration workflow.
“We use the Square integration within Jotform for our guests to purchase national championship game tickets, and it’s seamless,” said Berman. “There’s no need to spend time checking to see if a guest bought tickets and/or how many. I know they’ve already been paid for.”
We use the Square integration within Jotform for our guests to purchase national championship game tickets, and it’s seamless.
Sam Berman, Events & Hospitality Coordinator, CFP
For Berman and the CFP team, including Square as part of the solution checks off several important boxes: payments are collected immediately (with notifications sent to CFP), transactions are secure and PCI-certified, reconciliation is much simpler, and, perhaps most important, the guest experience is better. Guests now have confidence that everything (including easy receipt retrieval) has been handled in one session.
“What’s really nice is the reminder feature (in Square),” says Berman. “You just set it when you want to remind guests of payment, and it’ll continue to push out those notifications if they haven’t yet paid, which is super helpful.
“On the reconciliation side, the Square interface is really easy to navigate. I can type in someone’s name and sort what is paid and owed. The VIP form covers a large group of people. So they go in, pick how many tickets they want and at what price point. That goes straight to Square. Jotform and Square really go hand in hand together. It just makes my job easier.”
A VIP experience befitting an A-list of guests
Jotform and Square now help the Events & Hospitality team manage over 250 VIP registrations to CFP National Championship weekend — and facilitate approximately 500 VIP guest experiences — each year.
Guests complete registration, ticket purchases, and confirmations through one streamlined workflow. It’s a polished experience that reflects the CFP brand from beginning to end.
“We’ve made the registration process and overall CFP experience for our guests super high-end — but also just easy,” explained Berman. “Jotform has really allowed us to put everything in one place, so the guest experience from beginning to end is connected.”
Protecting revenue with Jotform and Square
Switching to the Jotform and Square toolset yielded savings of more than 50 percent for the CFP’s Events & Hospitality team over the previous VIP registration solution for national championship games past. Plus, by automating payment within the registration workflow, Doughty and Berman spend less time sending invoices and answering receipt requests and more time delivering an exceptional CFP National Championship experience.
Doughty emphasized the difference: “Often, in the sports invitation space, people will go with the really expensive solution because they think that’s what they need. In comparison, Jotform is not expensive. And before the Square integration, we were probably leaving money on the table because collection was being done via spreadsheets or notes. The integration within the site made sure we’re collecting all the payments we need.”
In the sports invitation space, people go with the expensive solution because they think that’s what they need. In comparison, Jotform is not expensive.
Allison Doughty, Senior Director of Events & Hospitality, CFP
Jotform Enterprise empowers the CFP team
Beyond consolidating workflows, Jotform Enterprise gives the CFP Events & Hospitality team ownership over its VIP registration experience. The team can build and edit forms themselves, update registrations in real time, and customize forms to reflect each CFP National Championship host city. They can also use Jotform in other departments and for different event types.
As an example, the platform has expanded beyond CFP National Championship VIP registrations to support over 30 meetings and events annually. It’s now used for everything from volunteer voting to internal inventory requests.
“The inventory form is a small example,” Berman said. “But it has created a symbolic process within the office. We want all of our meetings and events — whether internal or external — to showcase our brand, and Jotform has allowed us to do that.”
Rather than relying on a remote, third-party vendor to do this work — or to help them put together their processes — the team is empowered to manage projects and create or customize forms whenever and however they need. “All the tools are given to us via Jotform, and we’re in control of that process,” says Doughty.
What began as a solution for CFP National Championship VIP registrations has evolved into a broader operational platform supporting internal operations and event management across the organization.
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By using Jotform and Square, the CFP Events & Hospitality team was able to consolidate fragmented event operations into a single, branded workflow, giving the team control, protecting revenue, and supporting a premium guest experience.
“One of our CFP values is excellence and consistently elevating performance. It may sound silly to talk about a website in that vein, but that’s really what Jotform has done: It elevated the performance of our team,” said Doughty.
“We’re able to be more efficient because we have the tech solution in Jotform and Square. When VIPs are registering for the national championship game, there’s one seamless experience for us and an elevated registration experience for our guests.”
Interested in seeing what Jotform Enterprise can do for your organization? Contact our sales team to learn more.
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