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Prefer it or not, the SEC has been the highest convention for faculty soccer for over a decade now.
That a lot is obvious in the truth that the final 4 nationwide champions and eight of the final 12 are from the convention.
However that doesn’t imply that the SEC, or commissioner Greg Sankey, are infallible.
The truth is, ought to the Alabama Crimson Tide discover a technique to beat the Georgia Bulldogs in Saturday’s SEC championship sport, the convention could possibly be left outdoors wanting in on the Faculty Soccer Playoff.
Sankey, naturally, doesn’t consider that may be particularly reasonable.
However his reasoning for why his convention belongs within the CFP didn’t precisely make a ton of sense.
Sankey even argued that ought to the Tide beat the Bulldogs, maybe each groups ought to make the Faculty Soccer Playoff. However that’s when issues went off the rails. When ESPN Faculty Gameday host Rece Davis identified that the get-in worth for followers on the SEC Championship Recreation was larger than the opposite 4 energy convention mixed, Sankey pointed to that as a cause why the convention deserves a playoff staff.
Sankey doubles down on the Sesame Avenue argument. When @ReceDavis identified that the purchase in worth on the SEC sport was larger than all different leagues mixed: “One among this stuff isn’t like the opposite,” Sankey mentioned, primarily for the third time.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) December 2, 2023
Does it make enterprise sense? Positive. But when that’s all that issues, we must always simply select all the largest brand-name groups and put ’em within the playoffs.
(That is mainly the purpose of a 12-team playoff).
However followers and media members weren’t precisely bought on the concept of utilizing that as measuring stick.
“Sounds like somebody’s convention has an inflation drawback. a worse product for a better worth? couldn’t be me,” wrote @BrianMFloyd.
“Are we going to let SeatGeek and StubHub choose the 4 groups that play within the Faculty Soccer Playoff,” mentioned @ArashMarkazi.
Twitter consumer Dave Singleton laid it out merely.
“The h— does purchase in worth need to do with something? Right here’s the factor: If there’s a situation the place Texas wins and Bama beats Georgia, you might have an SEC champ that began the day decrease ranked than the Huge 12 champ that already beat them face to face. Bama higher hope FSU loses,” he tweeted.
You possibly can’t knock Sankey for doing his job. However he might have swung and missed a bit on this one.
