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Like it or not, the SEC has been the top conference for college football for over a decade now.
That much is evident in the fact that the last four national champions and eight of the last 12 are from the conference.
But that doesn’t mean that the SEC, or commissioner Greg Sankey, are infallible.
In fact, should the Alabama Crimson Tide find a way to beat the Georgia Bulldogs in Saturday’s SEC championship game, the conference could be left outside looking in at the College Football Playoff.
Sankey, naturally, doesn’t believe that would be very fair.
But his reasoning for why his conference belongs in the CFP didn’t exactly make a ton of sense.
Sankey even argued that should the Tide beat the Bulldogs, perhaps both teams should make the College Football Playoff. But that’s when things went off the rails. When ESPN College Gameday host Rece Davis pointed out that the get-in price for fans at the SEC Championship Game was higher than the other four power conference combined, Sankey pointed to that as a reason why the conference deserves a playoff team.
Sankey doubles down on the Sesame Street argument. When @ReceDavis pointed out that the buy in price at the SEC game was higher than all other leagues combined: “One of these things is not like the other,” Sankey said, essentially for the third time. https://t.co/g4hPNqlJmJ
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) December 2, 2023
Does it make business sense? Sure. But if that’s all that matters, we should just choose all the biggest brand-name teams and put ’em in the playoffs.
(This is basically the goal of a 12-team playoff).
But fans and media members weren’t exactly sold on the idea of using that as measuring stick.
“Sounds like someone’s conference has an inflation problem. a worse product for a higher price? couldn’t be me,” wrote @BrianMFloyd.
“Are we going to let SeatGeek and StubHub pick the four teams that play in the College Football Playoff,” said @ArashMarkazi.
Twitter user Dave Singleton laid it out simply.
“The h— does buy in price have to do with anything? Here’s the thing: If there is a scenario where Texas wins and Bama beats Georgia, you have an SEC champ that started the day lower ranked than the Big 12 champ that already beat them head to head. Bama better hope FSU loses,” he tweeted.
You can’t knock Sankey for doing his job. But he may have swung and missed a bit on this one.