I'm pulling this ctj post into here because I think it's pretty good, especially about the winds blowing towards a 9 game schedule.
I think the SEC can make the 9 game schedule makes sense for the 4 teams that have the most pressure to not lose a home game every other year: Texas, OU, Florida, and Georgia. Most decent teams in the SEC have big OOC home and homes lined up. Pretty easy to ensure you don't lose a home game in the same year you're playing away at Notre Dame or Clemson if they tailor the schedule to give you more home games in that year. You know ESPN can see that putting FCS games on their channels is a no-win situation. Texas vs Auburn in Austin is going to rate better than Texas vs San Jose State. The beauty of owning all the inventory is they would get more marquee games on their channels. If they're going to pay up, they're going to want a say on what games stay on the books and what gets removed.