Greg Sankey-SECMD22 — SEC commissioner Greg Sankey with the opening statement Monday morning to get SEC Media Days 2022 off and rolling in Atlanta punting on most big questions. (Dale Zanine / USA TODAY Sports)

SEC Simply Kicks Things Down Road with Schedule for 2024

League members couldn't decide, Greg Sankey doesn't want to dictate for a year

Author:
Andy Hodges
Publish date:
Jun 1, 2023 9:53 PM EDT

In this story:

Arkansas Razorbacks

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — It probably started looking just over a week or so ago the SEC was simply going to kick the can down the road for a year on the whole football schedule deal. They will play eight league games then and who really knows after that.

No one's really asking why they couldn't figure this out in a year, but then again everybody thought Texas and Oklahoma weren't joining the league until 2025 until everybody in the Big 12 simply didn't want the hassle of dealing with dead weight longer than they had to.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey could have just dictated nine games and that would be it. He doesn't have to put it to a vote, but it's not really a good long-term employment situation to be ordering people what to do very often. Instead, they are just taking a year before the new TV deals start in 2025.

"The change of the membership date from 2025 to 2024 creates scheduling complexities that can better be managed with a one-year schedule," Sankey said in an announcement. "It will also provide additional time to understand the impact of an expanded College Football Playoff and engage with our media partners as we determine the appropriate long-term plan for SEC football scheduling."

The guess here is it's an extra year to come up with a format for a nine-game schedule, which is where it will probably end up. The money is probably going to end up at least $5 million more per team a year with that new rights deal and what could end up being a bigger increase is what happens with the whole online streaming, whether you like it or not.

A full 2024 schedule will be announced June 14 on primetime television, which is the direction the SEC is going. It's fast becoming a junior varsity model of the NFL, which is the biggest sport in the country, both in people watching and money.

Exactly where Arkansas lands in all this isn't known. I'm not particularly interested in what the coaches around the league think about it, because they probably honestly don't care. Coaches just want to know what it is and get their teams ready to play it because they really don't worry about what they can't control.

Oh, they may complain about this or that, but that's for the media and fans. The coaches have to say something and when Kirby Smart of Georgia basically said this week they didn't really understand all the fuss, that's probably what they all feel. Smart can be that straightforward with two straight championships.

At least we have something to keep talking about for a year, which always benefits the SEC as much as anything. This is actually a benefit keeping the league football as a conversation piece ... even for those who are loosely aware there's air in the balls and not bird feathers.