With push for 24-team CFP field ramping up, Greg Sankey and SEC holding fast against it

Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey hold the keys to any future CFP format changes. (Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)

(USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect / REUTERS)

The top eight teams would receive a first-round bye, and the first two rounds of games would be played on the campuses of the higher-ranked teams.

This would add 12 games — more than doubling the current 11-game CFP.

How much are these additional 12 games worth? After all, eight of them are first-round games pitting Nos. 9-24, plus four additional second-round games.

First, you should know that it is believed that ESPN owns up to 13 games (the current 11 games plus two more additional games). If that’s true, that may only leave 10 games up for bid — most of them first-round affairs pitting plenty of three- and four-loss programs.

From a television perspective, the worth of each of those games may be as little as $10 million, according to some experts, and as much as $25 million. Add in a few dollars ($50-75 million) in on-campus game revenue and you are left with a wide range.

Some say as little as $300 million and others say as much as $700 million. The key amount to keep in mind is $250 million — the estimated value of the 10 FBS conference championship games, which, in a 24-team format, would need to be eliminated and their amounts recuperated from an expanded postseason.

“You might not even make enough to recoup the conference championship game revenue,” said one person here.

The SEC title game is valued at least $80 million and as high as $100 million, according to those with knowledge of the projections. The Big Ten isn’t much lower. Can the leagues fill that budgetary hole?

Many of Sankey’s own members have publicly called for the elimination of a championship game that they believe has been devalued with a playoff expansion to 12 teams. There is one problem with that: The SEC is contractually obligated, through ESPN, to play the game.

“We have contracts,” Sankey said. “Opinions are expressed, but we have a contract, so we have a championship game.”

There are plenty of other variables here to consider in a potential bidding process for a 24-team CFP. The NFL may go to market earlier than expected, potentially “sucking a whole lot of money out of the ecosystem," said one stakeholder.

Could that be made up by billion-dollar streaming companies wanting a piece of an expanded CFP pie? One commissioner cautions that line of thinking with a reminder of the CFP’s bidding process two years ago, when the organization moved from four teams to 12.

Only one legitimate bidder came to the table back then (ESPN).

But perhaps this isn’t all about the money.

“It’s an access thing,” said one commissioner.

Though a majority of fans seem to be against such an expansion — many of them traditionalists who wish to preserve the sanctity of the regular season — their teams, some spending $30-plus million on their rosters, would have a chance at a national championship despite two or three or even four losses.

Four-loss Iowa, for instance, would have made the field last year.

Would that be a good thing? Even CFP executive director Rich Clark, unprompted, mentioned Wednesday the impact on the regular season.

“The regular season is king,” he said. “We are a complement to the regular season.”

Clark described CFP expansion discussions today as “healthy,” but he’s uncertain an agreement will be reached by Dec. 1 — the deadline for a change to be implemented for 2027. The goal now for the CFP is to complete any research and work on the 24-team concept by the time decision-makers next meet in person in June.

“There’s a lot of data we want to drill into a little bit more,” Clark said.

As meetings ended here on Wednesday, the commissioners all went their separate ways, most of them leaving the Ritz-Carlton for the airport or their nearby homes.

But meanwhile, off in a corner of the hotel lobby, the SEC commissioner gathered with the CFP’s media consultants.

Perhaps the additional work has already begun.