TV ratings and a Big Ten alliance could help SEC to a 9-game schedule

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. According to Nielsen, the list of the dozen most-watched games this season has a theme: The seven most-watched games and 10 of the top 12 games involved at least one SEC team.

And conference play is just beginning: There are still big games to come, like Georgia-Texas, Alabama-Tennessee, Oklahoma-Texas, Texas-Texas A&M…

The SEC…it just means more ratings. And the reminder of this comes at the right time for the SEC office and hopefully for the fans.

The SEC and Big Ten athletic directors will meet next week in Nashville to discuss various topics. Some things on the agenda may not be all that popular, such as trying to nab more automatic spots in an expanded College Football Playoff. But arranging a date between the two mega-conferences would be more well received, and that is being discussed.

It is not clear when it would begin or how likely an agreement would be reached. One problem 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 that they’re even talking about it shows that the SEC may be closer to moving on from it.

The SEC largely put the dispute on hold last year and moved on to other issues, but it is still there, with 2026 and beyond still unresolved. The main question in conversations with people around the league who are not authorized to speak publicly remains whether Disney will agree to pay more money if the SEC agrees to add a ninth conference game.

Twelve million people tuned in to watch Alabama beat Georgia on Saturday. (Gary Cosby Jr./Imagn Images)

The financials 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 guaranteed games against Group of 5 or FCS teams, because SEC fans still love the stadiums fill for these games. The expansion to a nine-game conference schedule means each school will have one fewer home game on its schedule every two years. In return, the conference demands that Disney do what the company has been hesitant to do. (The current contract was signed months before Oklahoma and Texas approached the SEC about joining the conference.)

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey appears to be in favor of nine games, but he’s also in favor of money and keeping his presidents happy, and while the states of Kentucky and Mississippi are being criticized for wanting to stick with eight, even the president has of Georgia said that although he likes nine games, he believes it needs more money.

This brings us back to where we are now.

The SEC can just show their friends at Disney the TV ratings and say, Hey, do you like money? Want more? Well, we have a way!

But if the SEC sticks with an eight-game conference schedule, that will mean a total of eight fewer games per season, while some major games won’t be played every year: Georgia and Auburn play Saturday in the continuation of the Deep South’s oldest rivalry and have the 15th: 30 p.m. ET slot on ABC, but this rivalry would no longer be played on a permanent eight-game schedule every year. The same goes for Alabama-Tennessee, Texas-Texas A&M, Alabama-LSU and other games that are considered secondary rivalries.

And no, the SEC has not discussed a creative way to keep these games within an eight-game schedule. Maybe it could happen at some point, but all discussions so far have centered around either the 1-7 format (an annual duel on an eight-game schedule) or the 3-6 format (three annual rivalries within a nine-game schedule).

Nine games seem to work best for everyone. But then there is the possible scheduling agreement with the Big Ten.

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Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Kentucky all have in-state rivalries with ACC teams that they appear to want to maintain. That would mean those schools would have to play in 11 power conference games per season. So that’s a complication.

That’s another reason the SEC could follow the Big Ten’s push to get three (or perhaps more) automatic bids for the CFP. It’s all connected.

But this is a relatively short-term problem. The longer-term question, whether discussed officially or in whispers, will be where all this is headed: the future of college football, the Big Ten-SEC partnership and whether it displaces everyone else. It’s a much bigger question than whether to move to a nine-game schedule.

But when they meet next week, they will be in the knowledge that despite all the problems in sport, the sport and the business of sport are good. There are many serious issues unique to college sports that need to be addressed, but the perceived evils of pay-for-play, the transfer portal, and even realignment (sigh) are not affecting fans’ interest in sports.

There’s a lot going wrong with college sports because of the pursuit of money, and that’s made it harder to be a fan in many ways. But the fans also benefit from really good games. They’ve gotten a few so far this season, and it could show those in charge how important it is to make sure it stays that way.

If you want Texas-Texas A&M or Alabama-Tennessee every year, and add in some Ohio State-Georgia and Oregon-LSU, the way things are going could get us there.

(Top photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)