The SEC spring meetings are next week. Will the conference decide on a schedule format for 2024 then? Who knows? Maybe even Greg doesn’t.
If SEC officials meet for four days at a beach resort and no 2024 football schedule is approved, did it really even happen?
That question could become relevant after the SEC’s spring meetings next week in Miramar Beach, Florida.
For the second straight year, the SEC’s schedule format for ’24 and beyond will be a central topic of debate. No football schedule is approved after this season, the final year before the SEC expands to 16 teams.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey told me in early March that he expected a vote on the schedule to occur within 90 days. In other words, by the end of spring meetings.
By April, he’d eased on that timeline.
“Could be,” Sankey said then, when asked if the schedule would be decided at the meetings. “But, I said that last year, too.”
Indeed, coaches and administrators debated eight- and nine-game schedule formats a year ago. No vote occurred.
I think it’s safe to say at this point that Sankey hasn’t made a convincing case to his broadcast partner that the additions of Oklahoma and Texas should accrue to the SEC’s financial benefit under their contract. I also think it’s fair to say that momentum appears to be shifting away from the nine-conference game format.
Kentucky and South Carolina are among the schools on record favoring staying with eight SEC games. Florida, LSU and Texas A&M are among those favoring nine.
But the divide is not neatly divided among the SEC’s haves and have-nots. Sports Illustrated reported that Nick Saban told the publication Alabama favors sticking with eight conference games, a pivot from his years-long pandering for a ninth conference game. Saban’s stated hang-up with the nine-game format revolved around Alabama’s earmarked rivals being Auburn, LSU and Tennessee.
I mean, when you’ve lost Nick Saban…
One downside of sticking with eight conference games would be the sacrifice of some longstanding annual secondary rivalries, like Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia.
Eh, what’s a century’s worth of tradition, compared to appeasing Saban’s self-interest?
Get The Picture 
It’ll be 8 games until Disney is willing to pay more for the additional game. Especially if some of those great rivalry games stop happening.
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Totally agree, it’s about the money.
If they approve 9 without more money, mo negotiating leverage.
Assume, Stanley can’t market the 9 game to CBS, etc???
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Stankey
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No, he can’t. The contract is an exclusive grant of rights. Also, if they could, that broadcast partner would get the last choice of the inventory. For example, CBS would be left showing UGA-UT Martin or Vandy-Hawaii. The incremental value of that game sucks to the broadcaster.
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Exactly. Even if CBS could televise Oklahoma and Texas ga.es CBS would have no.rights to televise OU’s and UT’s SEC opponents.
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Disney doesn’t really need to pay any more if they don’t want to. What is the SEC going to do, not let them show the games? Does anyone think Fox or CBS is going to come in and offer more money?
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Disney has agreed to pay the amount resulting in the same share to Texas and Oklahoma that they agreed to in the contract signed last year that becomes effective in 2024. All of that was driven off an 8-game conference schedule plus the SEC home OOC games.
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I understand that. My point is; what is the SEC going to do if Disney simply says “we aren’t paying any more and we want you to play 9 conference games”? Sticking with 8 conference games seems like it will hurt the SEC more than help. Other conference fans will rightly say “the SEC plays a weak schedule every season, no wonder their teams have good records”. It won’t be long before the talking heads pick up on the watered down SEC schedule and start making it a never ending talking point to argue against more than one SEC team being in the playoff. Since ESPN controls the playoff, they can put pressure on the SEC to expand to 9 conference games by letting it be known that the 8 game conference schedule reduces the legitimacy of non champion SEC teams.
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Disney doesn’t have that kind of leverage especially now that the playoff is expanding to 12 teams. There’s no way the voice of college sports (which ESPN is) is going to turn around and knife their most valuable college sports property in the back especially considering ESPN and the SEC are joint venture partners in the SEC Network.
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Don’t get me wrong. I’m a 9-game, 3/6 proponent. I’m also trying to figure out what compromise makes the most sense if Disney isn’t going to pay up for 9th conference game and the conference doesn’t decide to give the Mouse a better mix of inventory for free.
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I don’t think Disney can dictate how many conference games the SEC plays. Other conferences have been saying “the SEC plays a weak schedule every season, no wonder their teams have good records” for years. If the SEC remains at 8 conference games, UGA will lose the Auburn game every year as the SEC goes to the 7 rotating / 1 permanent opponent scheduling.
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The ESPN contract would dictate the number of SEC versus SEC inventory of games available to televise, so I believe that Sankey and the presidents couldn’t decide to return to.the old 5 conference game requirements.
I will bet the contract allows the SEC to go to a 12 conference games a year schedule if it wishes.
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Start your own sec channel, run by sec, marketed by the sec, with sec game times, show ALL sec sporting events, with Uncle Vern type announcers, owned by the sec, cause in the sec, we told mickey to kiss our sec southern ass, if mickey wants to have programming on the sec run channel, mickey gonna have to pay…got nothing against mickey, very concerned about who is “fuckin’ Goofy” around here…
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Sort of like the Cocktail Party, cash talks, and bull$#!+ walks. If Disney (quit saying ESPN because this decision will be made in Burbank not in Bristol) isn’t willing to pay enough over lost home games, contract termination fees, and lost bowl revenue plus some, the 8-game schedule is going to win out, period. The question now is what would be a good compromise that saves or restarts the rivalries that matter. Get rid of the asinine 4-year requirement to play in every stadium. I don’t give a damn about playing in Starkville ever if it means losing the DSOR. The rank-and-file Texas fan doesn’t care about playing in Columbia, SC over restarting the TAMU rivalry annually.
Find common ground and get this done, Greg, or get the hell out of the way and find someone who can.
Finally, Bammers, you disgust me if this is true.
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Saban sees Kirby and crawfishes.
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Expanding the conference and not increasing the number of conference games the teams play sounds like something the federal govt would come up with. You usually have to go to a government employee to find this level of stupidity.
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Half the ACC is looking at exit options and many of the SEC fanbases don’t want anything to do with OU and Texas. I’d be happy to leave the failure in leadership which is the current SEC front office.
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If the SEC does stick with eight conference games, why couldn’t we go to a setup of three permanent opponents, five rotating? Why does it have to be a 1–7? (If there’s an answer, I’m sure it has something to do with money, I’d just like to know what it is.)
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Cause Bama doesn’t like their 3.
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They already play all three of those teams every year. It really looks like Nicky is getting scared.
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Doug, it’s all about this goal/requirement they have thrown out there that every player who stays 4 years should have the opportunity to play in every stadium in the conference. With early departures and the transfer portal, it’s so arbitrary that it’s dumb.
As a fan, I don’t give a rat’s ass about that. We’re the consumer of the product, and I assume we all want the rivalries we grew up with to stay intact or to restart.
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Hell, the players probably don’t give a flip either. Ask each member of Georgia’s team “How important is it for you to see Starkville or Lexington?” and count the number of blank stares you get.
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They don’t care because they don’t enjoy the city while they are there. Sort of like the time I went to Hawaii for work. My colleagues were like, “How was Honolulu last week?” My response was, “I spent most of my time in a project room, so I didn’t see much.”
If they wanted to play in Texas Memorial Stadium, the player would have gone to Texas.
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KY and SC are obviously scared of not being bowl eligible if they have to play a 9 game SEC schedule. I can’t imagine being a fan of a team that feels the need to “protect” its football program from competition. Of course, we do live in the “everybody gets a trophy” world now.
As far as Saban goes, maybe little Nicky knows Bama isn’t as good as they once were and he wants to avoid competition as much as possible. To that, I say “if you’re scared, say you’re scared”.
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Nuts? It appears someone cut Sankey’s nuts. Man the fuck up and be a leader, boy.
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I was gonna ask, what makes anyone think he has any nuts left to cut???
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When St. Nick had the best players and best coaches and was the best at developing players, he was all in on playing 9 conference games. Now that Kirby is in the drivers seat with the best players, best coaches and best at developing talent, his view has changed. The view at the top of the mountain is different than the view below. Excuses flow out of Tuscaloosa like water from a faucet these days!
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I was about to say something similar.
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This why continuously adding teams to the conference just to get bigger is stupid. I wish we’d never brought over Missouri and A&M, and I don’t think adding South Carolina and Arkansas did anything for the conference either. Now get off my lawn!
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Missouri, A&M, Arkansas, Texas and OU need to be in the BigXII with Nebraska, Colorado, etc.. South Carolina needs to be in the ACC where they have natural rivalries. The SEC needs the 10 original members and a 9 game conference schedule and every team would play every other team every year.
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You’re right, but that toothpaste came out of the tube in 1992 and isn’t going back in.
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Arkansas and South Carolina made sense. It allowed the divisions and the SECCG to take place and gave each school enough to keep rivalries alive and start some new ones (like Georgia-Tennessee). The next rounds of expansion were terribly done, and now we have what I would refer to not as the Southeastern Conference but the Central Time Zone Conference that has 4 eastern teams in it.
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The South Central Conference. SCC! SCC! you dig?
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Well played! Post of the day!
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Once CBS decided to walk they weren’t coming back. ESPN looked around, and seeing no other bidders in the room, decided the current payout is just fine – if not generous.
Sankey is painted into a corner. They had better come up with schedules of compelling games. Multiple seasons with long lists of watered down patsies will drive eyeballs and advertisers away.
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That’s the thing. This can be done using an 8-game schedule. You just have to get over the 4-year goal for rotating opponents for home/home. Something has to give if Disney isn’t going to pay up for a better mix of inventory of games. All of the goals can’t be equal. Are rivalries more important than playing in every stadium over 4 years? I would say an emphatic YES.
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Bringing in those two teams from the Big 12 (along with the other two that were brought in so hastily) is going to end up costing schools money which will in turn lead to more neutral site games and a weakening of the home schedules which will lead to more expansion for a bigger TV contract deal, so that’s the long game Sankey is probably playing since his ass is getting paid no matter what.
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Not sure how I understand that expansion is going to lead to more neutral site games … genuinely interested in that. Texas & Oklahoma are not going to be dilutive to the conference’s TV contract, but at this time, their admission isn’t going to be accretive to the contract … they are, on a per school basis, revenue-neutral. Their admission was more about grabbing more potential money from the expanded CFP to ensure that 3 or 4 (sometimes 5) teams will be in the field of 12.
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A couple of things: I thought the pie was being split, so that makes sense.
But what I meant by “more neutral site games” is that some teams may be looking for a site like Jerry World or Chick Fil A or Charlotte (or something else) to get a bigger cut for an appearance fee to make up from not getting extra cash from a higher-payout TV contract.
I was also talking out of my rear-end because I have other stuff to be doing today that I didn’t feel like doing. 🙂
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If Texas & LSU (as an example) decided they wanted to play their game in Houston because the city was willing to pay them for the privilege (as Jacksonville does for the Cocktail Party), I could see that. I don’t think teams are going to shop their games actively to cities with NFL stadiums (but I could definitely be wrong).
I don’t see teams going to OOC scheduling more neutral site games. For example, Chick-fil-a and the Peach Bowl don’t control the TV rights to the CFA Kickoff Game. It’s driven by whoever is designated as the home team. Clemson was the home team in Charlotte. We’ll be the home team when we play them in Atlanta. We didn’t want to do a return trip to Eugene (Vegas or wherever), so ESPN made it worth Oregon’s trip to play us 1 time in Atlanta. The game was part of the SEC’s TV package.
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Unless that game in Detroit between MSU and PSU is the canary in the coal mine.
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Is that going to be a true neutral site game or is Detroit paying MSU to move their home game from East Lansing to Ford Field? That’s definitely a fair comment to make. The B1G has this massive TV contract where they share the revenues. That would fly in the face of Ben’s original position that the TV contracts are driving this. That’s not really the case.
I would assume this is MSU looking for incremental revenue because I seriously doubt Ped State would give up their home game against Michigan State to play in Detroit (unless the city is making both teams make it worth it).
I remember a number of years ago where Orlando convinced Duke to play their home game against Florida State there instead of in Durham.
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East Lansing is only about 90 minutes from Detroit so it isn’t like they are travelling very far. I guess this was supposed to be a home game for Mich State.
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That was what I suspected as well. They are looking for incremental revenue especially from ticket sales for the game to be played at Ford.
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I sent a note to a colleague who is a big Sparty fan and alumnus. He loves this as a thing because campus is dead. If the team isn’t having a good season, the students won’t come back for the game. It will be cold, so playing indoors will encourage people to attend.
The problem is that this game isn’t included in the season ticket package, so he is going to spend extra for them. I wonder how much of a home field advantage Michigan State will really enjoy if Ped State people decide to make the trip to Detroit.
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That’s a bad look for Saban. Kind of like begging to be in the playoff last year. He’s obviously a great coach, but I don’t think he has ever been sincere in anything he said. It’s always about what’s best for him in the moment.
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Breaking news!! Saban is an insincere, selfish jackass! More at 11!
I hate that guy so very much.
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So basically it is going to be eight games with Auburn-Georgia and Tennessee-Alabama and LSU-Alabama being twice every four years until ESPN pays more for a ninth game to bring back a traditional rivalry every year. Got it.
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Unless Disney thinks they can grow their profit margin by paying for the 9th game, Bob Iger doesn’t care if the DSOR or the 3SiO gets played every year. Said differently, if Disney thinks they can get higher cable rates, streaming subscriptions, and, most importantly, advertising rates for the 9th game to offset an increased payout, we’ll see it.
If 2024 is an 8-game schedule, it’s going to remain in place for the foreseeable future. Neither the SEC nor Disney are going to cut their profits from the TV package voluntarily.
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So.. lemme get this straight. Adding TX & OK, yielded the the rest of SEC members zero more $. But TX & OK raised their $ take from B12 amount to SEC amount. Do I have this correct?
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Pretty much, Sankey should run for office as a US House Representative.
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That’s what it sounds like.
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Fuck Nick Saban, this shouldn’t be about him and the coaches. This should be about the fans and unfortunately the broadcast partners
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Keep putting new markets and TV contracts ahead of the fans that supported you for decade and look at NASCAR finally going back to old tracks. Brian France likes what the SEC is doing…..
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Methinks Saban has always been posturing to get LSU off his regular three. And he’s not wrong that Bama’s three will be a little harder than that of most other teams. But if you’re Bama, you should be beating most teams anyway, and the rest of your schedule arguably got easier each year by playing Kentucky, Mizzou and Vandy more often. No one in the West should be complaining about a 9-game schedule.
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LSU is generally a legitimately good team and Tennessee is “historically” good but has been a total mess for over a decade. NIL took away Auburn’s greatest recruiting tool, illegal payments to players. Does Saban want to get rid of Auburn, Bama’s in state rival?
Saban needs to really think about retiring. His whining about the schedule on top of his groveling and begging to be let in the playoff last year has made him look old and weak. He is still the GOAT but a few more years of his whining are going to put him in the “stayed around too long” category.
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How do the broadcast rights work if teams schedule out of conference neutral site games? My impression is that those are set up by some org like the Chick-fil-A kickoff, and they negotiate a tv deal and then pay out the teams. But could UGA and Michigan just set up a game in Indianapolis and ask the tv guys to send in bids? Or do the deals with the conferences prevent them from doing that?
If we stay at 8 I suspect Kirby will be pushing for at least one big ooc game a year. Wonder how much Uga can squeeze out of those.
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The TV rights for out of conference games follow the home team. Clemson was the home team in Charlotte. That’s why we were on ABC in prime time. The games was part of the ACC package. When we played Oregon in Atlanta, we were the home team. The TV money flowed to the SEC package.
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To your main question, no. Georgia and Michigan cannot schedule a game at a neutral site and put the TV rights out to bid.
Notre Dame (without reading the NBC contract) and another independent (say BYU before they entered the Big 12) could decide to play in Chicago or Dallas and put the TV rights up for bid.
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The wild card in this whole thing is the rumor that ESPN is looking to go to streaming only. If ESPN pulls out of cable the cable companies could lower their costs to the consumer and thus save their butts. However, ESPN will want a ton of money for their streaming service. The upside is after college football season I don’t GAS.
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So what the fuck benefits do the SEC fans and teams get out of adding Oklahoma and Texas?
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A trip to every away stadium over a 4-year time frame — how in the world could they fuck it up?
Yet, here we are, headed toward fuckupedness.
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You will have competing priorities in the room. You have schools like Mississippi State who really have 1 rival … Ole Miss. They are going to keep the Egg Bowl. The 9th conference game without a sufficient increase in TV cash means nothing to them. They have no reason to support anything but the status quo right now. OTOH, you have a program like Georgia with 2 deep, traditional conference rivalry games that want to be able to keep as annual games. Georgia financially could afford to say we’re going to vote our scheduling interests rather than our financial interests by supporting the 9th game. Then, you have a program like Texas who has played 9 conference games for years in the Big 12. They (and I assume TAMU) would want to resurrect the Texas/TAMU game as an annual affair. Once again, they are getting more money in the SEC to play the same number of conference games they’ve been used to playing. Finally, you have a program like South Carolina. They have had one traditional SEC rival in Georgia, but they seem to be ok with letting it go to an every other year game regardless. Therefore, without additional payout, they have no interest in moving from 8 to 9.
Sankey (and likely Morehead, who is the current president of the SEC) wants this vote to have some level of consensus among his members/bosses. He knows the vote at best right now is 10-6 in favor of 9 games, but it may be 9-7 or 10-6 for 8.
In Destin this week, he and Morehead have to broker a deal that has a consensus of support. If he doesn’t, it’s sort of like a vote of no confidence in Parliament for the Prime Minister.
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He has 16 different interests that all have an equal vote to placate.
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This is a situation that calls for a monarch instead of a democracy. Sankey needs to declare that starting in 2024 each team will play 9 conference games and use the 3-6 model. He can ask ESPN for more money but if they say no he can live with the current tv contract until it expires, the individual programs will not lose any money.
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I don’t believe he has the power under the SEC membership agreement to do this.
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If every other year was the main scheduling thing, this thing would have been done within a week of the admission of Texas and OU. We would have 1/7 and everyone would be getting ready for 2024. The problem is that’s not what means more.
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If we don’t continue to play the barn and turds(and nerds) every year…my fanatical involvement will take a pause that may not return.
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Just let the teams decide and tell them if you want to play 8 you are not going to be eligible for the SEC championship and if you play 9 you are.
If the SEC looses out on all the rivalries because they can’t get their crap together Sankey and all the AD’s need to be ran out of the business.
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