Published Dec 9, 2024
BMatt’s Monday musings
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Bryan Matthews  •  AuburnSports
Senior Editor
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@BMattAU

AUBURN | A few weeks ago, I was making my weekly guest appearances on radio and You Tube shows and one of the hosts asked me if I thought the SEC Championship game needs to end.

I quickly snapped back, ‘No way,’ considering how much money the game brings in for the conference, especially in the era of revenue sharing and NIL.

Upon further review, however, the first and most successful conference championship game may be nearing the end of its 32-year run.

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The SEC Championship game, which began in 1992, still brings in an impressive $50ish million into the SEC coffers every year, but the new college football playoff could certainly make up for that, especially if it expands to 14 or 16 teams in 2026, which seems inevitable.

An expanded playoff with more guaranteed games for the SEC and Big Ten is coming, especially after the SEC *only* got three teams in this year.

It’s also unclear if the SEC championship game would continue to bring in that much money considering the waning interest in it and title games around the country.

The get-in price for the SEC championship was $90 Saturday, which is less than a third of the cost from a year ago.

The drop-off in interest and attendance was far more noticeable in the other championship games such as the Big 12, which played in a half-empty AT&T Stadium in Arlington Texas Saturday for a get-in price of just $8.

The get-in price for the Big Ten championship was $11 while it was $39 to see a fantastic ACC championship game.

Do fans really want to pony up hundreds of dollars for tickets and travel to a conference championship game when a couple of weeks later, they’ll be asked to do the same for at least one and maybe more playoff games?

In this economy? I doubt it.

Clemson’s win over SMU is what ultimately knocked Alabama out of the 12-team playoff and will lead Greg Sankey and the school’s 16 AD’s to seek more guarantees in the future.

Georgia certainly benefitted from winning the SEC Championship, moving up from No. 5 to No. 3 in the rankings with Texas falling just one spot to No. 3, but the Bulldogs may have also lost their starting quarterback to a season-ending injury.

But what if UGA had lost? That would have dropped them to 10-3 and perhaps out of an opportunity to host a first-round game.

There are all sorts of downsides or potential downsides to playing an extra game that’s unneeded, especially when the SEC Championship can be determined in other ways.

Ways that could provide more championships.

That’s right. Before 1992, many of the SEC titles were shared.

Auburn won three consecutive SEC championship under Pat Dye from 1987-89. I remember them well because I was a student. The ’89 championship was shared with Alabama and Tennessee.

That was when the SEC had 10 teams. With 16, the odds of winning a championship are that much longer. Even a division title, which was never much to crow about, is off the table now.

I was not one of the ones worried about the regular season losing its importance with the new 12-team playoff. I think it’s been a great season of college football across the board.

But if you were or still are, this would make the regular season and the race for the SEC title much more entertaining. And it would likely come down to the final weekend every year with a number of possibilities.

Is there really a downside to an opportunity to win more championships? I didn’t look at AU’s 1989 championship any less than the ones won in 1983, 87 or 88.

The SEC Championship game was a trailblazer. It’s had many great moments. Auburn’s won three and lost three.

But in this era of change, its usefulness is diminishing and it’s time to bid it farewell and adieu.

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In today’s musical journey, we go back 45 years to the day a hit song from a band undergoing a renaissance with a new lead singer was certified Gold. On Dec. 10, 1979, Kool & the Gang’s “Ladies’ Night” passes one million in sales to achieve Gold status form the RIAA. It’s the first hit from the first album with lead singer J.T. Taylor, who was hired earlier that year to give the band a dedicated singer and focal point. Previously, vocals had been a collaborative effort. The song was inspired by a night at Studio 54 that Kool & the Gang co-founder Robert “Kool” Bell spent with his wife on ladies’ night. It gave Kool & the Gang their first top 10 hit in more than five years and began a string of 10 top 10 hits on the Billboard 100 over the next eight years. That run of hits included 1980’s “Celebration,” the band’s only No. 1, and “Too Hot,” 1982’s “Get Down On It,” 1983’s “Joanna” and 1985’s “Cherish.” The band has produced 26 albums, sold more than 70 million record worldwide and won a Grammy Award. Four members of the band have been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame including Taylor, Bell and his brother, Ronald Bell. Kool & the Gang were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2024. The only surviving band members, Robert Bell and Taylor, performed a medley of their songs at the ceremony including “Ladies’ Night.”

Kool & the Gang was formed in 1964 by seven friends in Jersey City including six that attended Lincoln High School. They started out playing mostly Motown covers in local theaters and lounges. They signed with an independent label, De-Lite Records, and recorded their first album in 1969. Their breakout came with their fourth album in 1973’s Wild and Peaceful, which included two Top 10 singles in “Jungle Boogie” and “Hollywood Swinging.” But those would be their last hits before Taylor joined six years later. Taylor grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey, and was a teacher, who also played in night clubs and with several different bands before auditioning for Kool & the Gang at the House of Music Studio in 1979. Taylor remained in the band for nine years before pursuing a solo career and taking up acting. He appeared in the movie, Mambo Kings, and was a part of the cast of the Broadway musical Raisin. Ronald Bell, who played the saxophone, wrote “Celebration,” which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2016 and the Library of Congress in 2021.

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