Amidst their short-sighted strong-arm proposals regarding the College Football Playoff, the Southeastern Conference is working on its own scheduling issues as well. Ross Dellenger of Yahoo is reporting that a nine-game SEC football schedule is back on the table.
There’s no way the league should do it without more money from ABC and its affiliates.
The SEC just wrapped up its first year in its new contract with ABC/ESPN, one worth $3 billion that’ll last over 10 seasons, or $300 million a year to distribute to 16 teams. That’s far behind the Big Ten, which has a seven-year deal worth $7 billion, or $1 billion a year to distribute to 18 teams.
You can see with that disparity why the Big Ten can afford a nine-game league schedule. However, if Greg Sankey pushes the SEC football slate to that number, he’s giving more money to the networks and potentially leaving some on the table.
How does that work?
Well, if the league goes to nine games, that would certainly mean more marquee SEC games. These are the games ESPN and ABC want to carry. They’ll draw huge ratings, and they’ll be the ones that allow the networks to charge a lot more to advertisers for.
Now, there will be an actual reduction in number of games. If, in a 12-game slate, every SEC team plays four non-conference games and eight league games, then there are 128 total regular season games involving SEC teams. In a 12-game slate with three non-conference games and nine league games, that total dips to 120.
What type of games will the networks be losing? Obviously, it’ll be the meaningless non-conference Group of Five or FCS matchups with the SEC that go to SEC Network, maybe even SEC Network plus. In its place, they get eight extra conference games in total that will undoubtedly bring in more top 25 matchups.
None of that extra money would go to the SEC. It’d all go to the network. In fact, the SEC would lose money in the deal because there would be fewer games in total, meaning less attendance revenue for the league. Attendance doesn’t change much based on these games. TV revenue does.
Then there’s the obvious issue of postseason play. Just this past year, the SEC got no benefit of the doubt when it came to schedule strength. The Big Ten got four teams in to their three. Why, then, would they go to a nine-game slate and potentially have fewer teams reach the CFP, meaning less money?
Forget the CFP. A nine-game slate inevitably reduces the number of bowl eligible teams and the path to six wins. That’s another round of cash the league leaves on the table. Simply put, there’s no monetary value in a nine-game SEC football schedule yet.
Back when the nine-game slate was first rejected in 2023, consensus was Nick Saban strong-armed the other SEC coaches to kill it at the spring meetings in Destin, Fla., since he didn’t like the proposed three permanent opponents for the Alabama Crimson Tide. However, the real incentive was the path to postseason success for these programs.
Why would that fear change now?
Maybe this is the leverage the league needs to renegotiate its horrible deal with ABC/ESPN. That’s obviously the ideal scenario. Until then, though, a nine-game slate is only rewarding the network that got a steal with its contract and does nothing for the league. The move makes no sense.
