SEC will blow up college football as we know it before sharing revenue | Opinion
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Now he’s the lone warrior, raging against the dying of the light. Greg Sankey will not go gentle into that good College Football Playoff night.
Or something like that.
Here’s the problem with painting Sankey — SEC commissioner, and arguably the most powerful man in college sports — as the last obstacle to a booming, 24-team playoff field: You’re pointing the finger at the wrong guy.
Or in this case, the wrong people.
Sankey does nothing without marching orders from the 16 SEC presidents and chancellors. He gives them every possible piece of information, they digest it and ask questions, and he answers.
Want to know why the SEC isn’t moving off a 16-team playoff? Because a 24-team playoff is the first big step to the 10 Football Bowl Subdivision conferences consolidating and sharing media rights.
And that’s just not going to happen. The SEC will blow up college football ― the whole smash ― before sharing its billions and prime television windows on the biggest network in college sports with everyone else.
Because if a 24-team playoff doesn’t significantly increase the value of the CFP contract — which some industry insiders think it won’t — the only remaining alternative to generate revenue for the 10 FBS conferences is pooling media rights.
A move that’s fraught with potential financial and structural problems — even if the move leads to significantly more cash.
Now you know why Sankey left this week’s CFP meetings in Dallas reiterating the SEC’s 16-team preference ― or no expansion at all. Frankly, it’s (another) obvious shot across the bow to everyone in college sports.
The big dog SEC isn’t just barking. It’s showing teeth.
If you want a 24-team playoff, you’ll do it without us. Go ahead and jump in the narrative deep end that the Big Ten has passed the SEC, and college sports will be healthier and happier if everyone pools media rights.
The SEC doesn’t care. Why, you ask?
Because the SEC has the ultimate trump card: It has ESPN, and has a longterm valuable product. Not a Big Ten three-year flash.
The SEC can — and you better believe will — take its ball and play a 10-game conference schedule with a couple of preseason games against any Group of Five school interested in earning a couple of million per game.
And don’t kid yourself, those G5 teams will line up to play those nonconference games and earn that cash.
The SEC will then have its own eight-team playoff to determine the conference champion. And if the other nine conferences are interested in their playoff champion playing the SEC champion for the national title, that’s a road the SEC will travel down. For the right price.
I don’t know how I can say this more definitively: The SEC will never share its media rights billions. They’ll walk away and leave college sports in ruins before that happens.
“Last year, we came out of Destin with very clear messaging,” Sankey said of the league’s annual spring meetings in the Florida panhandle. “Haven’t changed at this point.”
And won’t change. Not for 24 teams, not for anything.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why the SEC Is digging In — and daring college football to blink
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