College Football Conference Championship Games Facing Extinction

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ATLANTA, GEORGIA - DECEMBER 06: Bray Hubbard #18 of the Alabama Crimson Tide reacts after a touchdown is scored by Georgia Bulldogs during the fourth quarter in the 2025 SEC Championship at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on December 06, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

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While college football’s expanded playoff structure in recent years hasn’t killed off the excitement of the FBS regular season, as some detractors expected, the 12-team era may be killing off another aspect of the sport instead.

At the top end, a 12-team playoff adds as many as four games to teams’ schedules (three for teams that earn a first-round bye). Tacking that and a potential conference championship game onto college football’s typical 12 games could mean a 17-game slate for some programs. And that’s before accounting for the 24-game proposal the Big Ten has put forward.

That’s a significant increase in both the number of teams and games. And a 24-team playoff would also crucially remove conference championship games from the equation.

But even without a 24-team format, there’s a growing chance conference championship games go by the wayside anyway.

Alabama AD: “The Ship Has Sailed”​

The Big Ten is a powerful entity on its own in college sports. Yet a single conference’s proposal to add playoff teams or remove conference championship games isn’t going to push change forward.

Adding a second, however? That might do the trick. Especially if that second conference is the SEC.

During an exclusive interview with USA Today this week, Alabama Athletic Director Greg Byrne said of the SEC Championship Game, ““I think the ship has sailed. It’s run its course.”

Byrne’s comments come within a wider discussion of the College Football Playoff’s likely expansion to 16 or more teams in the coming years. But whether the field grows or not, proposing the death of conference title games – especially the SEC Championship Game – is a reflection of what’s at stake for these schools and coaches in the playoff era.

It can be argued that a conference championship game simply adds another hurdle for coaches, schools and conferences. And though the SEC and Big Ten have combined to claim eight of the last 10 national championships (all through some form of playoff), they’re understandably not trying to make their job any harder than it already is.

Alabama isn’t even the only SEC team that feels this way, either. Texas AD Chris Del Conte has also asked why these games are staged, as his school is in the same upper echelon of the sport as the Crimson Tide.

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INDIANAPOLIS, IN - DECEMBER 06: Indiana Hoosiers DL Tyrique Tucker (95) tackles Ohio State Buckeyes RB Isaiah West (32) during the Big Ten Championship football game between the Indiana Hoosiers and the Ohio State Buckeyes on December 6, 2025 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, IN. (Photo by James Black/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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Increasingly Risky Business​

At a minimum, playing in a conference championship means an extra game; an extra opportunity to lose players to injury and more incurred risk for players potentially looking ahead to lucrative careers in the NFL, too.

In a four-team playoff, there was at least some merit to the title game. If a team was truly worthy of competing to win it all in that format, they could win a conference championship game, a semifinal and then a national title. For power conference teams, winning that game was essentially your admission ticket to try for the larger prize.

Today’s superconferences mean just four (out of 68) power conference teams actually win a league championship. As designed, seven schools make the 12-team College Football Playoff without winning their conference, which makes those titles the equivalent of pro sports’ division championships.

Those banners are nice, of course. But ask a fan of an NBA team which banners they appreciate more: The ones hung for division titles, or the ones hung for winning (or making) the Finals.

Or worse still, imagine asking a pro team to play an extra game to determine the division championship after already finishing with the best record. And then if they lose that division championship game, they risk missing the playoffs altogether.

That math has never added up for U.S. pro sports. Even if it once did for college sports (and it did when college football, in particular, was more regional and there were more major conferences), that time has seemingly passed.

Making Up The Money​

A key reason the playoff supersedes conference championship games in importance is money.

Every team that makes the College Football Playoff makes $4 million for its conference just for being invited to the event. And then another $4 million for making the quarterfinals, $6 million more for playing in the semifinals, and $6 million more for playing for the national championship.

If the SEC has five teams qualify for the College Football Playoff (as it did in 2025), that’s $20 million. Three teams playing in the quarterfinals means another $12 million. They’d collect somewhere between $6 million and $24 million on top of that should one or more of those advance to the semifinals or further.

The SEC (the most lucrative conference championship game) nets the league a reported $50 million – as revealed by The Athletic in 2025. It’s a hefty sum to give up. But if staging the game at all costs the league even one team, it quickly starts to erode the benefit.

Even without mentioning them exclusively, these schools are potentially thinking about the long-term effects on fans, too.

Asking fans to travel to postseason games with minimal notice multiple times every December and January adds up even for those with the deepest pockets. Removing one of those trips (conference championships) from the calendar potentially pays off later with better attendance in the playoff.

Considering the sport is already seeing postseason attendance drop significantly (9% year-over-year), schools and conferences can’t ignore the impact of an expanded playoff on the number of actual fans in seats.

Or they could. But it’s a perilous game given rising ticket costs and what’s required to keep a modern college football program nationally competitive.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com

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