The debate of a 16-team and a 24-team playoff just got a whole new perspective. After the Big Ten’s demand for a 24-playoff system received the nod from the AFCA board, ESPN’s Paul Finebaum revealed a major concern: this could completely ruin conference games. The veteran reporter is criticizing the idea of preserving the championship games.

“The problem right now is they can’t get along because Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the SEC, was willing to go to 16, but he wasn’t willing to go to 24,” ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum said on Crain & Cone. “And I mean, you can criticize some of his rationale. The conference championship games are over. I don’t think that’s really a debate any longer. It’s just a matter of unwinding them because the SEC has a very profitable deal worth about a hundred million dollars, and they have contracts.”

A 24-team playoff would compress the schedule, making it hard to fit conference title games before January. As such, some leaders believe conferences may eventually remove championship games completely.

Another problem is that conference championship games may stop feeling very important. Right now, teams usually need to win those games to make the playoffs. But if 24 teams qualify, many schools could still reach the playoffs even after losing their conference title game. This way, the conference games will lose their worth.

Paul Finebaum strongly criticized the idea of a 24-team College Football Playoff because he believes it would hurt college football. He feels the playoff would become too large and would include teams that are not truly good enough to compete for a national championship.

“I do not understand why people in the sport of football like the AFCA, and I interviewed their president (Craig Bohl) a couple of weeks ago; he’s a perfectly nice guy, but he ought to keep his nose out of this. How they could endorse a 24-team playoff is utterly ridiculous,” Finebaum added.

Last season gave everyone a clear warning. Georgia beat Alabama for the SEC crown, but Alabama still reached the playoff. Indiana then beat Ohio State in the Big Ten title game, and Ohio State still got in, too. Once losing teams keep surviving, the championship game stops feeling like the final door.

On top of it, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey reportedly supported the 16-team playoff instead of a 24-team format because the SEC Championship Game makes a huge amount of money for the conference. Reports say the SEC earns around $100 million from the game through ticket sales, television deals, and other contracts. If the playoffs expand to 24 teams, conferences may no longer have enough time in the schedule to keep the championship games.

Even inside the SEC, that fear is no longer being brushed aside.

Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne believes the SEC Championship Game may not last much longer because college football is changing quickly. In the past, conference championship games were very important because only four teams could reach the College Football Playoff. Teams usually needed to win those games to keep their playoff hopes alive. But now, the playoffs have expanded, giving more teams a chance to qualify.

Because of this, Byrne feels the SEC Championship Game is no longer as necessary as it once was and may eventually disappear.

“I think the ship has sailed,” Byrne said during an interview with USA Today. “It’s run its course. It’s a great event. I don’t like the idea of it going away, but I think it’s reality, with an expanded playoff.”

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart also supported the same stance. He believed the SEC Championship Game could eventually disappear if the College Football Playoff keeps expanding. Right now, Smart still supports the game under the current 12-team playoff format. However, he said things could change if the playoffs grow to 16 or 24 teams because scheduling would become harder and teams would need to finish the season earlier.

“Where we are right now with 12 teams (in the playoff), I don’t necessarily agree that it needs to quit being played,” Kirby Smart said. “But if it gets to 16 or 24 and we’ve got to move the end of the season up and we’ve got to get everything done by the second week of January, then I’d say it probably has to go.”

Now the matter is very simple. If teams can still reach the playoffs even after losing this game, then slowly this title match may lose its real value.