SEC announces new baseball tournament format for 2025 with Texas, Oklahoma joining

The SEC baseball tournament will take on a new format starting in 2025.

The conference announced Thursday it will move to a single-elimination format for all 16 SEC teams following the addition of Oklahoma and Texas in the 2024-25 athletic year. The top four seeds in the tournament would get a double-bye to the quarterfinals.

Seeding will still be based on the regular-season SEC standings. 

The number of regular-season games is not changing with expansion, the SEC announced previously. Each team will play 30 games in 10 three-game series. Each team has two permanent opponents and eight rotating opponents with standings kept in a single group without divisions.

What is the new structure of the SEC baseball tournament?

The new format, which will start in May 2025, will be a six-day tournament featuring all the SEC teams. It removes the previous structure's double-elimination portion.

Four games will be played on Tuesday and Wednesday to open the tournament. Two games will be played on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The championship game remains on Sunday.

The No. 9 through No. 16 seeds will play Tuesday in pairing based on regular-season standings, while seeds No. 5 through No. 8 will receive a bye through to Wednesday. The winners will advance to face seeds No. 1 through No. 4 either Thursday or Friday.

How was the SEC baseball tournament structured?

The current structure, which will remain in place for the 2024 season, has 12 of the 14 SEC teams in the tournament. It features a combination of single-elimination and double-elimination games during the six-day tournament.

The opening round is a single-elimination portion before it flips to a double-elimination style for the following three rounds. A single-elimination bracket is used in the semifinals and finals.

Where does the SEC baseball tournament take place?

The SEC baseball tournament is at the Hoover Met in Hoover, Alabama, which has hosted the tournament annually since 1998. 

Hoover is slated to host the tournament through at least 2024.

Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at michael.wilson@knoxnews.com and follow him on Twitter @ByMikeWilson. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it