College Football Playoff expansion rumors are flowing. 24 teams, baby. More is better.
MORE!
The SEC meets next week in Destin. This is a topic that will certainly be on the table.
The Big Ten wants it. The ACC wants it. The Big 12 wants it.
Greg Sankey…doesn’t.
He’s set a line at 16.
Sankey is talking about the regular season. He’s warning about games that won’t matter and games that used to matter a lot…suddenly not.
He feels like the only voice saying it out loud:
“Don’t kill the goose that laid the golden egg.”
Don’t mistake this for stewardship.
Sankey is protecting the SEC. The sport is on its own.
The SEC has the power. Why would Sankey throw that away?
His restraint is born of self-interest. Vision, if applicable, is secondary.
A conflicted voice. Saying the truth. Because the truth works for him…right now.
Golden Egg
Every expansion adds revenue.
Every expansion also subtracts meaning.
Conference championship games used to be the pinnacle. Something you’d focus your team on all year.
Now…they can feel like a liability.
Don’t believe me: just think back to the arguments made about how Alabama might suffer if they lost in the SEC Championship Game.
Lose the title game. Miss the playoff?
You’d be stupid not to wonder if the championship game was worth it.
The 12-team playoff that was going to be “better” has given us a bunch of blowouts.
The games that were meant to justify the expansion have proven the opposite.
Now we are supposed to think 24 teams will be “better.”
“Better” if you mean more access, more revenue, more “inventory.”
The Money Mirage in action. The metric is the meaning. Ratings and ad dollars justify everything.
The product erodes, but the spreadsheet says “growth” because the “number go up.”
Sankey sees this.
“At any level of expansion, there will be games that didn’t matter in a smaller number that now matter in a bigger number. But there’s another side to that coin where the next-to-last weekend—right now is critically important—might not matter in the same way.”
That is a negotiating tactic. But it is also someone who, intentional or not, sees that you can get too greedy and you can kill the thing that made you matter to start with.
Goose. Dead.
So, don’t mistake this for stewardship. Sankey is protecting college football…because that’s what is best for the SEC.
That’s the job.
Again…nobody has the job of protecting the sport.
Where the Power Is
The 2024 memorandum gave the SEC and the Big Ten veto power over any playoff expansion.
Everyone else…
The ACC commissioner supports 24 teams. The Big 12 commissioner…also, supports 24 teams.
The Group of 6 conferences?
They’re happy to be there. They may have input, but it doesn’t matter.
Two conferences have the power.
But…the power isn’t equal.
ESPN holds the CFP rights. $7.8 billion through 2032.
…ESPN is also the SEC’s exclusive media partner. ESPN operates the SEC Network.
A bloc.
The Big Ten’s rights are split.
Fox. CBS. NBC. All have games.
None with any playoff “inventory.”
Fox is pushing for 24 teams…it is their only path to postseason “inventory.”
The Big Ten’s leverage is real: they have a veto. But they don’t have the financial alignment that the SEC-ESPN partnership provides.
This isn’t just SEC vs. Big Ten. It’s SEC/ESPN vs. Big Ten/Fox.
Two blocs. Negotiating about “content” and “inventory.” The game…not a priority.
The Fiduciary Trap
This isn’t conspiracy. It’s worse. It’s rational.
Sankey’s job: protect the SEC. His duty. His legal obligation.
16 teams can preserve the regular season and the conference’s dominance. It works to keep the SEC product premium. It keeps ESPN’s investment secure.
Petitti’s job: protect the Big Ten.
24 teams creates more access. It helps Fox gain a seat at the postseason table. “Grows the pie.”
Yormark’s job: protect the Big 12.
24 teams would give his conference a better path to the playoffs.
Of course, he supports it.
Each commissioner is acting in their conference’s best interest. They are doing their jobs.
Nobody’s job is to protect college football.
Not the commissioners. Not the networks. Not the CFP board. Not the university presidents who sign off on the deals and then issue statements about “student-athlete well-being.”
Everyone is rational. The outcome is collectively destructive.
That’s drift.
Strategic Drift born out of a system that rewards “every man for himself.”
Consequences be damned.
No one is protecting the game. We see a roomful of people, fighting over the goose…wanting the first slice.
“I’m just doing my job.”
Spending: Nobody Touches
The expansion debate is always framed as about access and opportunity.
It’s a lie.
Money is the driver.
Because money will solve all of the sport’s issues.
Here’s what isn’t said: the reason they need the money is the spending is out of control.
Expansion isn’t just a cash grab. It’s a bailout.
The cost disease is a cancer that no one wants to treat. So, they chase revenue to outrun it.
More media money. More playoff “inventory.” More.
The fix is always more.
Because if the revenue ever slows, someone might start asking why a strength coach is getting paid a $1 million a year.
Can’t have that.
It’s structural.
It’s accelerating.
It’s treated as non-negotiable.
Okay. It’s worse.
It’s paid lip service.
No one is doing a thing to fix the problem. They just say they are concerned.
Then they approve the next facility upgrade.
“Gotta keep up.”
Coaching salaries: $10 million plus annually. $50 million plus buyout clauses.
A head coach does a poor job, gets fired, collects generational wealth for failure.
The replacement gets more.
The facilities arms race: weight rooms that make Equinox look like a high school weight room. Locker rooms with LED lighting, barber chairs, and infinity pools.
Nutrition stations that look better than a Vegas buffet.
The message to a 17-year-old recruit: You’re coming here to be worshipped.
Ego as bait.
Once you are in the machine…it chews you up and spits you out.
You might get some NIL money. Great.
You might get a degree. If you are lucky.
But the extraction machine only cares as long as you’re producing. Eligibility expires. The next class arrives.
Your time is up.
“Fuck ‘em.”
Administrative bloat: ADs get paid.
The staff doing the day-to-day work? Squeezed, more and more, every year.
I know many people leaving college sports because the salaries get worse and the demands never stop.
The college career path isn’t a ladder. It’s a slide straight into burnout.
The Trump fix: Transfer restrictions. NIL rollbacks. Employment status blockades.
The political intervention targets player power and leaves the system largely untouched.
Caps on the players…yes.
Caps on administration or coaches…hell no.
The free market for coaches. A controlled market for players.
The Extraction Economy in plain sight: Protect the overhead. Reward the bosses. Control the talent.
Let’s call it tradition. That sells.
The Evidence Already Exists
College basketball is running this experiment.
The regular season is now low-stakes filler. Nobody really cares until the bracket drops.
The tournament is the only thing that matters.
You know what will help?
Let’s make the tournament 76 teams!
That’s the future of college football if things go on unimpeded.
The 12-team playoff gave us lopsided opening games and diminished conference championships.
24 teams?
Would accelerate both trends.
The regular season becomes a seeding exercise. The conference title games probably go away…they are irrelevant.
The Army-Navy game needs presidential protection to survive the scheduling puzzle.
Sankey’s concern about the regular season is the tell. He knows dilution is coming.
He can’t really call it a crisis for the sport. He can only name it as a negotiating position.
Because the crisis of the sport isn’t his job.
But the truth of this is that dilution becomes a slippery slope to the most dangerous emotion: apathy.
You won’t hear that argument anywhere.
What Does Success Look Like?
That’s the question that people need to ask.
Not for themselves. For the game. Because if the sport is watered down, undermined…their power evaporates as well.
What is college football supposed to be?
Because right now it is an extraction machine that recruits ego, burns through labor, protects coaches, squeezes staff, and dismisses any questions about the sustainability of the entire enterprise as naïve.
The argument that “college sports is basically minor league sports” is drift. It’s reality because it is the excuse needed to power extraction.
“It is what it is.”
That’s not a defense of a broken system.
It’s resignation.
It’s admitting you don’t have the guts to do something different.
A commissioner of college football isn’t a new idea. It is probably an idea thrown out to make people feel like the solution is right there, but nothing will change.
But here’s why it matters in this context: left alone, the Extraction Economy consumes everything, destroys everything…and moves on.
No questions asked.
Goose. Dead.
“Look over there…we can optimize that.”
Sankey won’t stop it. That’s not his job.
Pettiti, same.
The networks won’t stop it. They need the “inventory.”
The only check on extraction is a real steward with real power. Someone who has the job of guaranteeing the health of the sport itself.
Not a savior.
A circuit breaker.
Without that, drift continues…accelerates. Until there is nothing left.
The regular season hollows out. The playoff bloats. Spending escalates. Labor gets squeezed.
Everyone was just doing their job.
Goose. Dead.
Then, there’s an empty shell where a packed stadium used to be.
“It is what it is.”
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