Under college football’s new playoff format debuting in 2014, conference title games will become the last chance for teams to impress the playoff selection committee. Atlanta writer Ray Glier (“How the SEC Became Goliath: The Making of College Football’s Most Dominant Conference”) points out what fans should expect.
The conference title games definitely are not going away anytime soon. There’s too much money to be made. And the importance of Championship Saturday, as they call it, is about to increase.
The 13-person committee that will pick four teams for the national semifinals will be looking at conference title games very closely. The conference championship games will be the last tough game that a team plays before the playoffs and the last chance to make a statement before the committee makes its decision.
Along with the SEC, the Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC will be looking to make that statement. If you’re 11-1 going into the conference championship, winning that is going to matter a lot, especially if the team you play is a top-20 team, because that will add to your strength of schedule — a factor that the committee of 13 will consider heavily.
Remember, the way it is now: We have only two teams playing for the national championship. Now that will double to four. You used to have computers and polls and mathematical formulas to decide who played for the BCS championship; now there are going to be 13 people in a room — including Condoleezza Rice — to pick the four teams. She’s very accustomed to making difficult decisions, which should help the group made up of athletic directors and retired coaches.
So what you will have a day after the title games is like Selection Sunday in college basketball, but with a real small bracket of teams. Fans will not only pay attention to the SEC Championship game, but the other title games. That Saturday is going to be a really big Saturday.
The College Football Playoff television contract is a 12-year deal for about $5.5 billion. These conferences set themselves up to control and split up all this money among themselves. No matter what teams are chosen, Atlanta will share some of that revenue because it will eventually host one of the national semifinal games and national title games. I like to say “There is a lot of money to be made in college football as long as you’re not playing.” They are making so much money on the heads of these students who play football, it’s ridiculous.
The championship game is not only a source of pride for the programs that win, it is a great source of revenue. It matters.
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