Beyond Money, Why Will There Still Be a SEC Championship Game?

Now that there are no longer divisions, what really is the point of the conference championship game? The regular season champ could easily be determined with a tie-breaker system. The same system that will be used inevitably to determine the participants in the game in years when teams are tied with the same record. I don’t see any upside to it for the conference other than money.

The two teams that will qualify would be locks to make the 12 team playoff without a conference championship game. But there is the very real possibility the additional loss could knock a team out. Not only that, they could even be leap frogged by another SEC team that was behind them previously. A very possible scenario would be a 12-0 or 11-1 SEC team playing one of several 10-2 teams. The 10-2 teams would all likely be ranked between 6-12 in the rankings. Let’s say the team that makes it was ranked 8th and loses. And they fall 5 spots, like Georgia did last year. They would miss out on making the playofffs, while the other 10-2 teams would likely make it. In that scenario, a team would be penalized for playing the game. An even worse scenario would be a 12-0 team beating the one 10-2 team in the conference in the championship, with a logjam of 9-3 teams behind them. That would leave the SEC with one undefeated and a bunch of 3 loss teams. In that scenario the SEC likely loses a slot to another conference.

I understand they are going to keep playing the game because of the amount of money it generates. But other than that, I don’t see it having any upside for the league.

It won’t happen every year. It might not even be common. But it will cost a team, and maybe the league, a playoff spot eventually. So why play the game?