SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey presents plan for changing college football landscape
As a new era of the SEC begins, with the conference expanding to 16 teams, Commissioner Greg Sankey took the stage at media days on Monday to discuss his outlook on the new state, the future state, and everything else involving college football’s toughest conference.
Within minutes of taking the podium to kick the four-day event off in Dallas, Texas, Sankey made jokes about now-retired Alabama head coach Nick Saban, discussed unity college football can bring amid turmoil across American politics, and touted championships the SEC has seen across the board in recent years. He then took some time to discuss the additions of Oklahoma and Texas, two powerhouse programs moving from the Big 12 to the SEC this fall.
“The avid fan base along with regional traditions are the reason the additions made sense,” Sankey said. “Each campus fits the mold of what we’re looking for in the SEC.”
Texas and Oklahoma bring a combined 11 national championships in football to a conference that claims 43 titles already. As further expansion hypotheticals paired with seemingly everchanging NIL and transfer portal rules continue to be discussed both in and outside of Dallas, Sankey presented five fields of play to keep the SEC successful: Courts, Congress, State Legislatures, Campus, and NCAA.
Courts
The SEC has been fortunate among several key lawsuits, including the recent $2.8 billion settlement in damages to be paid out by the NCAA and a commitment by conferences to allow schools to share a percentage of revenue with athletes.
However, Sankey warned that future rulings are to come regarding topics such as player pay, player contracts, and Title IX. He vouched that the SEC is doing what it can to make “wise decisions” and not get caught in the fray.
“As you know, there are other lawsuits. We have state attorneys general that have engaged in lawsuits against the NCAA. Part of the current settlement effort is to resolve – to the extent that we can resolve – as much as possible to do just that,” Sankey said.
“I also would observe that when you look at litigation that exists at the professional level, it’s not an indication that the model solves all litigation threats. The simple observation is we live in a litigious society and we have to continue to make wise decisions informed by legal counsel and be prepared to defend those decisions that are made.”
Congress
Sankey expressed what he believes to be a need to develop a uniform national standard and provide differences between collegiate and professional athletics. As the conference’s commissioner, he plans to take on a leadership role and continue to appeal to federal lawmakers to enact legislation defining amateurism and professionalism in sports while simultaneously using his platform to make internal changes in the SEC.
“We’re going to continue our dialogue with Congress. Again, we’re going to have to make decisions on our own. We have to do those with the right legal counsel,” Sankey said. “Congress is a place that can help set national standards and address the issues our student-athletes have raised.”
Though Sankey is gearing up for trips to and fro D.C., he acknowledged there’s an uphill battle ahead for officials looking to address an elephant in the room that will not be easy to move.
“We are dealing with an incredibly complex set of issues that when I sit down with some of those leaders in the areas that I’ve mentioned and I describe the various challenges we face, it is universal, whether it’s a professional league commissioner or a member of Congress, a high-level attorney, at some point they’ll look at me and say, ‘That’s the most complicated situation I’ve ever heard.’ That’s why there’s no easy button,” he added.
State Legislatures
With support from Congress not guaranteed, Sankey also finds it necessary to go down a level to state legislatures. Lawmakers in all 12 states facilitating SEC programs have proposed and enacted legislation related to college athletics at some point in recent years.
He hopes that the states making up the 16 programs will take a unified approach to passing similar laws across the board to ultimately benefit student-athletes and ease the burden the conference is having to bear.
“We have state legislatures continuing to enact or change laws that govern how we conduct college athletics. There are outside ideas that come from those apparently associated with private equity firms, professional leagues, search firms, and former executives from leading media companies who want to insert their thinking,” Sankey said. “So even in our footprint, you could normalize or standardize state legislation, among our 12 states now, to support that equitable competition our student-athletes are asking to be a part of.”
The commissioner believes the SEC is fortunate to remain relatively regional and not have a campus further than 100 miles from its nearest conference counterpart, contrasted with the new layout of the Big Ten featuring conference members from New Jersey, California, and multiple states in between the east and west coasts.
Campus
As the SEC transitions into a new era featuring two of the most storied college football programs as new additions to the conference, Sankey harped on the role college campuses should play in cultivating an environment conducive for student-athletes to thrive.
The rich traditions of the 16 programs make the SEC stand out from the other three power conferences. However, Sankey is not complacent with the conference’s recent successes and wants to continue on a trajectory of rapid improvement.
“We’ve already engaged over a thousand of our faculty in education around that important topic, a new topic, an emerging topic in which we intend to lead as campuses. But we have the responsibility on our university campuses to constantly be evaluating and exploring the best partnerships and innovations that protect the collective interests of our universities while also tackling new legal and political realities,” Sankey noted.
NCAA
The final topic Sankey addressed entailed regulation at the national level and how it will more than likely affect the SEC. Connecting the dots with how the court system, Congress, state legislatures, college campuses, and the NCAA all factor into the SEC’s flourishing in the future, he contended that college athletics’ governing body is ultimately responsible for promoting uniformity.
Sankey is of the mindset that all five facets working in perfect harmony would allow college athletics’ to curtail some of the impending consequences such as the potential for a split in some of the sports, such as football.
“Now, if you can create the right kind of linkages between all five (the last being NCAA), there’s a perfect outcome. I can’t ignore any of those five. I can’t work on four,” Sankey said. “That doesn’t mean all five have to work together to provide a path forward. How much authority can be managed at the national level through the NCAA? That’s clearly what’s under full scrutiny, what can be managed at the conference level. If it’s less national, how do you actually have Final Fours and College Football Playoffs if everybody has a different set of rules.”
The commissioner argued that college sports lack merit if there isn’t a uniform system in place for competitors to adhere to, leaving conferences, like the SEC, with big decisions to make regarding their future in the NCAA.
Caleb Salers contributed to this report
