Alabama and Georgia played another instant classic on Saturday night, and 12 million people watched, making it by far the highest-rated college football game of the 2024 season. That’s according to Nielsen, and its list of the dozen most-watched games this season has a theme: The seven most-watched games, and 10 of the top 12, have involved at least one SEC team.
And conference play is just starting: There are still marquee games to come, such as Georgia–Texas, Alabama-Tennessee, Oklahoma-Texas, Texas-Texas A&M …
The SEC … it just means more ratings. And the reminder of this comes at an opportune time for the SEC office and hopefully, for the fans.
SEC and Big Ten athletic directors are set to meet next week in Nashville to discuss several issues. Some things on the agenda may not be too popular, such as trying to seize more automatic spots in an expanded College Football Playoff. But a scheduling agreement between the two mega-conferences would be more eagerly received, and that’s going to be discussed.
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It’s not clear when it would start or even how likely it is to be agreed upon. One hangup is the Big Ten, which currently plays a nine-game conference schedule and almost certainly won’t agree to a deal if the SEC sticks with its eight-game conference schedule. But the fact they’re even talking about it shows the SEC may be closer to moving away from that.
The SEC largely shelved the argument during the past year, dealing with other issues, but it’s still out there, with 2026 and beyond not resolved. The main issue, talking with people around the league not authorized to speak publicly, remains whether Disney will agree to pay more money if the SEC agrees to add a ninth conference game.
The finances of this, for those who need reminding: Many SEC schools prefer at least seven home games per year, even if one or two of those are so-called guarantee games against Group of 5 or FCS teams because SEC fans still fill up stadiums for those games. Expanding to a nine-game conference schedule means every school has one fewer home game on its schedule every other year. In exchange for that, the conference wants Disney to make up for it, which it has been reluctant to do so far. (The current deal was signed months before Oklahoma and Texas approached the SEC about joining the conference.)
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has seemed to be pro-nine games, but he’s also pro-money and pro-keeping his presidents happy, and while the Kentuckys and Mississippi States get singled out for wanting to stick with eight, even Georgia’s president has said that while he likes nine games, he thinks it needs to come with more money.
That brings us back to where we are now.
The SEC can just show the TV ratings to their friends at Disney and say: Hey, do you like money? Wouldn’t you like more? Well, we have a way!
But if the SEC sticks with an eight-game conference schedule, that will mean eight total fewer games per season while some marquee games won’t be played every year: Georgia and Auburn play Saturday in the continuation of the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry and has the 3:30 p.m. ET slot on ABC, but that rivalry would not be played every year anymore in a permanent eight-game schedule. Ditto for Alabama-Tennessee, Texas-Texas A&M, Alabama-LSU and other games considered secondary rivalries.
And no, the SEC has not discussed a creative way to keep those games within an eight-game schedule. Maybe it could eventually, but all discussions so far have been either about the 1-7 format (one annual rivalry with an eight-game schedule) or the 3-6 format (three annual rivalries within a nine-game schedule).
Nine games would seem to work best for everyone. But then there’s the possible scheduling agreement with the Big Ten.
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Kentucky all have in-state rivalries with ACC teams, which by all accounts they want to keep. That would mean going to 11 power-conference games per season for those schools. So that’s a complication.
That’s another reason the SEC might go along with the Big Ten’s push to get three (or maybe more) automatic bids to the CFP. It’s all connected.
But this is a relatively short-term issue. The longer-term one, whether it’s discussed officially or in whispers, will be where this is all leading: the future of college football, the partnership between the Big Ten and SEC and whether it’s pushing everyone else out. It’s a much larger issue than whether to go to a nine-game schedule.
But when they meet next week, it will be in the knowledge that for all the problems in the sport, the sport and the business of the sport are good. There are a lot of serious, only-in-college sports issues that have to be dealt with, but the perceived ills of pay-for-play, the transfer portal and even realignment (sigh) are not affecting the fans’ interest in the sport.
A lot of things are wrong with college sports because of the chase for money, and that has made it hard to be a fan in a lot of ways. But the fans also benefit from really good games. So far this season, they’ve gotten a few, and it may be showing the powers-that-be the value of ensuring it stays that way.
If you want Texas-Texas A&M or Alabama-Tennessee every year and throw in some Ohio State-Georgia and Oregon-LSU, the way things are going may be getting us there.
(Top photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
