Texas coach Steve Sarkisian sounded bullish when asked Thursday if he expects to see a lot of burnt orange in Atlanta in two days when his team makes its debut in the SEC Championship Game.
“If you tell me the ticket prices, I could probably tell you how many Longhorn fans are coming,” Sarkisian said.
Well, a check that same hour of one secondary market, StubHub, showed tickets available in the lower sections as low as $249 and as low as $108 in the upper sections. Not cheap but still much lower than the average big game. There’s still time for things to pick up, but the slower demand could be another indication of the changes in college football and how they impact the SEC championship.
Texas and Georgia are both assumed to be going to the College Football Playoff regardless of what happens on Saturday. So it’s fair to assume some fans are saving their money for upcoming trips: as many as three for the winner of Saturday’s game and as many as four for the loser.
That gets to the other flashpoint around the SEC championship: the concern that it could unduly harm the loser. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin gave voice to that long-simmering worry a few weeks ago, saying he and many coaches he talked to preferred not to play in the game.
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The SEC makes so much money from the game — reportedly between $40-$60 million every year through tickets and the television contract — for it to give the game up easily. So commissioner Greg Sankey was asked Thursday if, in negotiations on the Playoff format for 2026 and beyond, he would seek assurances that losing the game isn’t a detriment, such as automatic berths for both participants or changing the format so a non-champion could be seeded in the top four.
Sankey didn’t commit to anything, just reiterating that college football should go through this and next year and then re-evaluate. He harkened back to the BCS era when there were tweaks to the formula regularly, something that stopped in 2014 when the sport went to a selection committee for the CFP.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey’s conference will crown a champion on Saturday in Atlanta. (Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
“I do think one element that has been forgotten is we don’t want to go through change every year. We want to work to get things right,” Sankey said. “Now, I know that we’re in this new era, and that’s going to cause a lot of questions. … And I think some of the observations are fair, not all, and I think some of the observations have to be distilled.”
Sankey then alluded to the debate about who should be the final at-large team. He didn’t weigh on the debate that has raged since the committee put Alabama in the final at-large spot on Tuesday, much to the chagrin of two of Sankey’s teams, Ole Miss and South Carolina, as well as Miami and other non-SEC teams. As Sankey has done before, he said facetiously he favored the maximum eight teams getting in the field.
But he said options should be on the table for the next format: re-seeding after the first round, which Sankey favored in the initial negotiations or the seeding of conference champions. Sankey didn’t mention an expansion of the field and didn’t address a question about even going back to using computers, a la the BCS, rather than a selection committee.
“We have to learn and adapt in a time-efficient manner,” Sankey said. “So using a John Wooden maxim, we need to be quick but not hurry. I don’t want us to just react. I want us to be thoughtful and how we consider these issues. And as I said before, going through the Playoff and then looking at adjustment as the appropriate time frame.”
He did address the worry of coaches that playing in the game could hurt the losing team, which in the best-case scenario has to play an extra game and in the worst-case scenario is booted entirely from the field. The worst-case scenario doesn’t appear in play this year. But the loser still has to turn around and play in two weeks, while teams that didn’t make the championship game were able to rest this week. And the losing team may see its seed dropped further than if it hadn’t played at all.
Ultimately, Sankey is taking a wait-and-see approach, as this is the first year with this dynamic involved.
“I don’t think that all (conference) championship games are created equal,” Sankey said. “The committee will have to decide, but I would anticipate they’ll respect that high level of competition, and there wouldn’t be a lot of variance, given the results. There is, though, as you know, a significant reward for winning, and that is the opportunity to avoid that first-round game, have an understanding of the possible opponents and prepare for a bowl destination a few weeks down the road.”
For their part, the two coaches in Saturday’s game took an optimistic outlook on playing this week. Kirby Smart is coaching Georgia for the seventh time in the SEC game since 2017.
“I’m an SEC enthusiast that believes that SEC titles are a significant marker to your season,” Smart said. “It also gets you a bye and gets you an opportunity to rest and recover while others play formidable, tough opponents. It removes you from that. So you’re playing for an opportunity to rest.”
Sarkisian is coaching in the game for the first time as a head coach but was there twice as an Alabama assistant.
“The reward to play in a championship game like this is one we cherish. But by the same token I hope this year and in future years nobody ever gets punished because they don’t come out on top in this game,” Sarkisian said. “Because it is a real grind. To earn the opportunity to hoist that trophy is a great one. If anything I hope we get recognized for making it to this game, and not get punished.”
(Top photo of Steve Sarkisian: Tim Warner / Getty Images)
