Major College Football Figure Calls for End to SEC Championship Game

More than a generation ago, the SEC changed college football by creating the first conference championship game that pitted the league’s two best teams against each other on the same field, sparking a national trend that continues to this day.

But now, one of the most notable figures in the SEC thinks it no longer serves any real purpose.

Farewell to the SEC Championship Game?

Getting rid of the SEC Championship Game for good?

It’s something that Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne thinks the conference should do now.

“I think the ship has sailed. It’s run its course,” Byrne said to USA Today.

SEC innovated the concept

Back in 1992, the SEC introduced the idea of deciding a conference champion on the field in a standalone postseason game.

And despite naturally being met with some doubt, the game became a huge hit and was eventually adopted by other leagues.

Not that Byrne doesn’t like the SEC Championship Game, per se.

But in an era where college football’s national champion is decided in a playoff format, and after that field was expanded to 12 teams, the value of having a conference’s two best teams play another game against each other has decreased considerably in the minds of decision makers.

Especially in the SEC and other Power Four conferences, where both teams in such a game will have reasonably secured a place in the more consequential national playoff.

Playoff expansion plays a role

“It’s a great event. I don’t like the idea of it going away, but I think it’s reality, with an expanded playoff,” the head of Alabama’s athletic department said.

The fate of college football’s Championship Saturday naturally became a subject of conversation after the expansion of the playoff from four to 12 teams, and Byrne isn’t the first prominent figure in the sport to raise it.

Including in his conference, as Texas athletic director Chris Conte appears to share Byrne’s view, as does new LSU head coach Lane Kiffin.

The natural counterargument is that these games net serious revenue, particularly in an era where college football needs all the money it can get its hands on for ever greater NIL deals and payroll obligations for players in the wake of the House decision.

But conferences would theoretically make more money from playoff participation than from their own championship games at the start of December.

What to do instead?

What would the SEC replace its championship game with? More teams in the College Football Playoff.

It would certainly answer any questions about lost revenue, Byrne suggests.

“If you’re going to a 16 team playoff, you’re adding more games. I would imagine it would be pretty good content,” he said.

Some would argue the SEC Championship Game has been “pretty good content” over the decades.

But if college football’s masters can find a better return somewhere else, they’ve already proven that tradition runs a distant second to profit.

(USA Today)