Adding an SEC game would bring more fans and money, but also a potential loss

As the sport considers College Football Playoff changes that would start with the 2026 season, there is the thought of moving toward a more unified format throughout the sport.

Much of the discussion to this point regarding an expanded SEC schedule has been hypothetical. The league won’t want to adjust its scheduling model until it better knows the parameters of the CFP.

When asked last week about Georgia’s thoughts on a nine-game conference slate, Georgia Athletic Director Josh Brooks declined to provide a definitive answer on the matter.

But given what Georgia’s football team went through in 2024, it is fair to wonder if it should staunchly support a tougher SEC schedule.

With divisions gone, Georgia played an SEC slate that saw it face four of the top 14 teams in the country, all as conference games. The Bulldogs were able to navigate that stretch and still win the SEC, but it came at a cost as injuries mounted.

Texas, by comparison, played only one team in the regular season that ranked among the top 14 in the final CFP rankings. Tennessee and Alabama played two and Ole Miss also faced only one.

There was a schedule imbalance in the league last year, and that happened to work against Georgia. Add in that the games against Texas, Alabama and Ole Miss came away from home, and you can understand why Kirby Smart needled the league when Georgia won the SEC.

The ultimate goal for Georgia is to make the playoff. Playing more SEC games creates opportunities for more losses, making Georgia’s path to the playoff more difficult.

“We want to make sure that whatever decision we make puts us in the best position to get ourselves in the playoffs and as many SEC teams in the playoffs as well,” Brooks said. “So thankfully, we have a lot of faith in Commissioner (Greg) Sankey and the work he’s doing, and that’s going to drive a lot of that.”

Georgia also played two nonconference games against Power 4 foes, Clemson and Georgia Tech. The former made the playoff, while the latter took Georgia to eight overtimes before the Bulldogs prevailed.

The Bulldogs have future nonconference games lined up against Louisville, Florida State, Clemson and Ohio State, in addition to UGA’s annual contest with Tech.

Georgia has shown some willingness to move off marquee nonconference games, as a series with UCLA that was set to be played in 2025 and 2026 was called off last summer.

The game with UCLA was replaced with a home game against Marshall, which Georgia plays Aug. 30.

“We will look at it year to year and see how the schedule will evolve from there,” Brooks said. “I can’t definitively tell you which way it will go, but that’s a year-to-year looking at it, how it plays out. We’ll have to look at it and see where we’ll go over the next 10 years of schedule.”

Of course, there are some potential positives when it comes to an expanded SEC schedule. Fans want more games against the likes of Texas, LSU, Oklahoma, etc. Those experiences, the home and road games, are what makes college football so popular.

There also are financial incentives that could come from an expanded SEC slate.

According to a report from Seth Emerson and Andrew Marchand of The Athletic, the SEC could bring in an additional $50-80 million annually from ESPN if the league expands to nine conference games. ESPN holds the league’s TV rights.

From a Georgia standpoint, a ninth conference game potentially would bring another home game to a slate that loses a home game every other year by playing Florida in Jacksonville.

In terms of expected ticket revenue, an SEC home game brings in expected added revenue from $5.1-5.7 million, according to projections for the coming fiscal year.

Add in that we’ve seen Georgia play a nine-game SEC schedule — in the 2020 COVID-19 season, when Georgia played all nine of its regular-season games against conference foes — and you can see why this becomes a difficult issue for every team in the league.

“A nine-game schedule gives you an opportunity for another SEC opponent, more quality matchups,” Brooks said. “We know that. We know that there’s more demand for that. We saw that in the COVID year. We played an SEC-only schedule, so you know that.”

This time a year ago, it would have made sense for Georgia to be in favor of an expanded SEC slate. The Bulldogs would reap the financial benefits and looked to be clear cut above the rest of the league in the last days of divisional play in 2023.

But a new schedule brought forth new challenges.

Georgia navigated those about as well as any team could reasonably expect. But what if the game against UMass was taken off the schedule and replaced with, say, a game at Missouri or a home game against Texas A&M?

Whether a nine-game conference slate is the best for Georgia remains to be seen. But Brooks can confidently say he will be in lockstep with Smart in terms of navigating what those changes look like.

“I work very closely with that head coach to help them build a schedule that fits their needs,” Brooks said.