There is never a dull moment in college football, especially when it comes to the growing civil war between the SEC and the Big Ten over the future of the sport.
For months now, the two superconferences have been on opposite sides of the debate over where the College Football Playoff and the sport’s postseason should go. College football has practically handed over control to the Big Ten and SEC in the hopes of preventing a breakaway super league. However, the two dipolar powers can’t seem to agree on much at all with their authority.
The biggest sticking point is the future expansion of the College Football Playoff. The Big Ten has argued for up to 24 teams and autobids, while the SEC wants to stick with a smaller field of 16 teams and more at-large berths. And predictably, the conference proxies in the media are falling along their battle lines. Big Ten partner Fox Sports has come out in favor of major expansion, while SEC partner ESPN has been against it.
The interest for Fox and ESPN may be even more obvious than the conferences. ESPN owns the rights to all playoff games and even makes money from licensing some of them to TNT in the current setup. A huge expansion puts a lot more inventory on the table, where Fox could theoretically get a slice of the newly engorged pie.
And in speaking to reporters at CFP meetings in Irving, Texas, Sankey and the SEC are standing their ground against growing support for the 24-team model, including from a presidential media committee backed by the White House.
Sankey continued to stand behind the 16-team playoff model, saying his views “haven’t changed at this point” via ESPN. He also said the SEC Championship Game isn’t going anywhere because of the contracts signed to host it.
“We have contracts and opinions are expressed, but we have contracts that are dealt with. So we have a championship game.”
The central idea behind a 24-team playoff would be to eliminate conference championship games that have lost much of their meaning. Even in the 12-team era, the Big Ten and SEC hold title games that are largely meaningless, with both participants usually CFP locks. In an expanded model, the games become increasingly meaningless with either increased at-large bids or automatic bids.
As much as Greg Sankey and the SEC may protest, the push to 24 teams looks inevitable. There’s just too much support for it, both within the sport and outside of it, whether that’s rival conferences, media partners, or even, now, politicians. We have seen the same thing happen with the upcoming expansion of the NCAA Tournament. As much as it may dilute the product, there is just too much money to be made by going in this direction. Eventually, the same will be true with the College Football Playoff.
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