SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey expressed an “openness” to College Football Playoff (CFP) expansion.
At SEC Tipoff, a media event for the upcoming conference’s college basketball season, Sankey said the conference has “never said” the expansion “won’t happen” or that it “won’t be a point of support.”
Going back to last year’s media day in Tampa, Sankey said he “identified the considerations around media interest, around where the games are played, around impact on the regular season, noting that’s a judgment that has to be made.”
“But we’ve worked through and continue to consider and work through those issues,” he explained.
Sankey (pictured above) noted attitudes and perspectives on these topics “change” gradually.
“We’ll see where that leads us from a final decision standpoint,” the commissioner said on Wednesday.
“We have achieved some of the progress we’d expect on scheduling commitments,” he told reporters. “We’ll see if we can finalize those across the nation. Go from there, and make some final decisions probably sooner rather than later.”
The CFP Management Committee is currently in exclusive discussions with ESPN about expanding the CFP from 12 to 24 teams. The talks focus on the network potentially paying for media rights to the extra 10 games.
ESPN currently holds the CFP media rights for up to 14 teams through the 2031-2032 college football season. The network televises 11 games in the current playoff format, but would increase to 23 games in a 24-team format.
With rights currently limited to a 14-team playoff, ESPN could televise two additional games, leaving 10 more games available for negotiation.
The CFP Management Committee extended negotiations with ESPN by five business days, setting the new deadline for Monday, October 19th. Monday was a federal holiday because of Columbus Day.
If the two sides can’t reach an agreement, the management committee can shop the media rights for the extra 10 games to other companies.
If the CFP expands to 24 teams, it could eliminate conference championship games. Media reports value the Power Four conference championship games between $200 million and $250 million.
For the expansion to take effect next football season, a deal must be finalized by December 1st.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at [email protected].
Photo “Greg Sankey” by TexAgs.
