The College Football Playoff National Championship is set, and it will be an all-SEC matchup. No. 3 Georgia will face off against No. 1 Alabama in Indianapolis on Jan. 10. While the conference will surely add another national champion, it will also receive millions of dollars.
For both Alabama and Georgia playing in the CFP, the SEC will receive $12 million, $6 million for each team. The conference receives no bonus for one of its teams reaching the national championship. The SEC will also receive another $4 million due to Ole Miss playing in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1.
While the SEC will receive the money, due to the conference’s bylaws, a portion of it goes to the individual team competing in the CFP. The conference gives $2.05 million of that money to schools playing in the semifinal, and an additional $2.15 million for competing in the national championship. The remaining money the SEC has is distributed across the conference.
Every team that competes in a semifinal game, Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl or in the National Championship will receive $2.63 million to cover expenses for the game.
Outside of the CFP, every school that participates in a bowl game will earn the conference $300,000, before accounting for each bowl’s individual payout. To qualify for a bowl game, a team must win at least six games in the season. There were 10 SEC teams that made a bowl game that was not under the CFP, earning a combined record of 3-6 in those games so far.
LSU will face Kansas State in the Texas Bowl on Jan. 4. Vanderbilt was the lone team that did not qualify for a bowl game, going 2-10 overall. Texas A&M was not able to play in the Gator Bowl against Wake Forest due to a COVID-19 outbreak in the Aggies’ team and will not receive the bowl game’s payout of $5,350,000.
Each bowl’s payout is given to the conference, and will later be distributed to the teams across the SEC. While each team receives a portion, the team competing in the bowl game earns a larger percentage of the payout.
In the 2020-21 season, all 10 conferences received a base amount. For conferences that have contracts with the Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl or Sugar Bowl, the base amount was approximately $57 million for each conference.
The SEC has a contract with the Sugar Bowl, which means the conference is guaranteed to send a team to the game, unless it is in the CFP rotation, as it was in 2015, 2018, 2020 and 2021.
