MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey closed the SEC Spring Meetings on Thursday by confirming what he predicted on Monday.
Sankey doubted much would be done from the conference’s standpoint to resolve the issue of expanding the 12-team College Football Playoff field.
“As I said on Monday in a prophetic way, no decisions were made, no votes were taken,” Sankey said. “We looked at the calendar issue. We looked at some of the matters around bracket size. The numbers that have been talked about were not new.
“We’ll continue to monitor what may happen as we go into the summer and understanding the interest in potentially expanding the College Football Playoff field.”
The Big Ten, Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference have voiced support for expanding the 12-team field to 24.
The SEC prefers 16 teams.
If no agreement is made, the playoff will remain at 12 teams.
The deadline to make a change for the 2027 season is set for Dec. 1.
Sankey indicated he’s not necessarily against a 24-team field. Rather, he wants more information before agreeing to double the field.
The root of his hesitancy is likely the threat that a 24-team playoff poses to conference championship games.
The general consensus among coaches and administrators is for the playoff semifinals to be played on Jan. 1, which is traditionally a day to feature college football.
The championship game would be played a week or two later.
But a 24-team format would add another week to the playoff schedule, which would likely result in the cancellation of conference championship games.
That’s a major concern for the SEC. The SEC Championship game produces roughly $90 million in revenue that’s split among the 16 SEC teams — more than $5 million per team.
Will the revenue of eight first-round playoff games divided among nine conferences and Notre Dame be as lucrative for SEC members as a conference championship game?
“There had been no research and work on a 24,” Sankey said. “Simply saying we’ll do this to do that without the supporting information was not a decision we were prepared to make.
“I want to be clear, we never stated opposition to 24. We stated support for 16.”
Sankey hopes a resolution comes soon. Not only for the sake of the conferences, but also for the bowl games that are not included in the playoff.
“There are several reasons the College Football Playoff format needs to be resolved,” Sankey said. “No. 1, we need to make a decision so we can go to work on other issues.
“But they (bowl games) deserve to understand how many teams will be involved in that playoff so they can make decisions about how they’re positioned.”
