Raising the stakes involves more than the title game. Those near misses a potential AAC champ or MWC champ has gets the rest of the G5 tuning in. Any games in the league title hunt for any league have more viewers with skin in the game. Games like A&M vs Tennessee where a likely at-large team has a chance to lose and drop out would get more attention should it be close.

Also a random G5 access slot won't be as likely to get attention as a playoff bid shot. One- the P5 fanbases are all wanting to avoid the G5 team currently and won't pay much attention. However some bleedover viewers from whoever is potentially #1 overall is likely to tune in if they know there's a good shot they'll play them next.

Obviously you'd need to schedule it wisely to avoid issues but this isn't just 4 more invested games- it's adding up a lot more on other games across the different leagues.