DALLAS — SEC commissioner Greg Sankey is plotting a steady trajectory for his conference, even as headwinds steer college athletics toward uncharted waters.
An estimated $22 million annual line item looms for every major university’s athletic budget after a recent court case granted players a share of the revenue generated by college athletics. Take a look around the country and you’ll see a variety of ideas on the table to make up that difference.
Private equity has entered the conversation. Conferences are adding new members to improve their financial security. The ACC is battling Clemson and Florida State in court as those schools explore potential departures from the conference. Meanwhile, the Big 12 is examining a radical change: selling its naming rights to a corporate sponsor in hopes of hundreds of millions of dollars to help pay athletes.
The origin of these seismic shifts can be traced to SEC’s Media Days three years ago in Hoover, Alabama. That is when news of Oklahoma and Texas’ impending departure from the Big 12 leaked. The ripple effect ultimately sunk the Pac-12, and led to the Big Ten and ACC becoming coast-to-coast conferences.
While adding two of the sport’s bluebloods to its roster is the biggest move the conference has made, it’s far from the only one. Sankey is examining a nine-game conference schedule in an effort to generate more money and better position itself in the 12-team College Football Playoff. The conference also continues to monitor the situation in the ACC.
“We’re a national conference that has a regional platform,” Sankey said “I don’t think you have the luxury of never saying never in this world, but I think our focus has been appropriate and I think our decisions have been justified based on what’s happened over the last three years. We’re not reacting. We were on the front and the focus on 16 (universities) is real with the responsibility to be aware of what’s happening around us.”
That is just one topic Sankey tackled in a wide-ranging exclusive interview with CBS Sports at SEC Media Days. You can read all of his answers below.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
CBS Sports: How about we open things up by talking about actual football? Is the SEC the deepest league in the country this year?
Greg Sankey: Yeah, I think by far. Now it’s July, so everybody has high expectations, but we were the deepest league last year and one of the new teams (Texas) was in the top four, and the other (Oklahoma) was in the top 12. So, yes, but everybody has opinions on that.
CBS: Some conferences are known for quarterbacks or defenses. What’s the SEC’s identity this year?
GS: I haven’t dug into rosters where you say, we’ve got this group of quarterbacks across the league. We’ve had that from time to time. I think the consistent basis is the commitment and strength just around football, the environments around the game. It is a league of really special environments. That’s not on the field, but I think it’s part of the game of college football. But for me to say, well, it’s this position or that position, it’s kind of The Everything League.
CBS: Do you think Georgia should have been in the CFP last season?
GS: I think the model made it difficult, right? Who’s in, who’s out? But you just look at the strength of that team, and I think that informs the pressure to expand beyond four. In past years, people have said ‘well, they’re only four.’ Last year was one of those years where you could have gone seven, eight, nine deep. So you look at the Florida State situation, certainly not unsympathetic to that. You look at Ole Miss. I mean, they lost on the road to Georgia, and then they lost to Alabama — and that’s it. Nobody had two losses against that caliber of teams and that’s it. My observation with Georgia is, yeah, I think when you look at that team, that was one of the top four teams. Now the problem with that structure is, who gets left out? But that’s yesterday, somebody else had a question. I respond. That’s yesterday, but I think it informs this year and the future.
CBS: You spoke in the past about the importance of the SEC’s geographic footprint. The other power conferences have expanded from coast to coast. Could you foresee a day where geography is not important for the SEC?
GS: Not based on any conversations I’ve had. In fact, it’s not an indication … that nobody reached out. When the concept was introduced, our presidents and chancellors had great phrases: ‘We know who we are, our fans know who we are and that makes us really special. Why would we want to go someplace different?’ We’re a national conference that has a regional platform. I don’t think you have the luxury of never saying never in this world, but I think our focus has been appropriate and our decisions have been justified based on what’s happened over the last three years. We’re not reacting. We were on the front and the focus on 16 (universities) is real with the responsibility to be aware of what’s happening around us.
CBS: College athletics has been chaotic. Does it bother you when you see schools like Florida State and Clemson suing their conference?
GS: Did I expect schools that have been a part of the decision-making process to say, ‘we don’t like those outcomes and we’re going to test this in court?’ They have the ability to do that (and) we’ll see how it plays out, but that’s certainly not something I would have anticipated happening in the manner that it has.
CBS: It was reported today that your head coaches expect to share as much as $15 million with football players under the new revenue-sharing model. There are a lot of hurdles still in the way, including Title IX. What kind of models have you guys discussed internally?
GS: I think that’s a premature prediction, to the base of your question. We’re gonna discuss our models internally first before having those published.
CBS: Do you believe, legally, you can base your future revenue-sharing model on what the attorneys in the House vs. NCAA lawsuit outlined? They expect to share 90% of the settlement dollars ($2.8 billion) with former football and men’s basketball players. There are obvious Title IX hurdles for the future revenue-sharing model.
GS: That remains to be seen. That was the message in Destin (at SEC spring meetings). We’re interested to see how that’s presented and positioned, how that’s considered by the court and what the reaction is in general.
CBS: Do you believe the particulars of the model will be decided before August 2025?
GS: That remains to be seen.
CBS: Is it possible the revenue-sharing model is delayed until 2026 in order to figure out the particulars?
GS: I don’t at this point.
CBS: The SEC is mulling a move from eight conference games to nine. I know you will wait until early next year to make a decision. How much of the decision-making process is based on how the new 12-team College Football Playoff affects scheduling, and how much is this about finding more revenue to help your schools?
GS: I think I’ve been consistent, and I’m still consistent: there’s no one factor involved. The consideration of eight or nine games and a single division goes back probably to 2018. It was introduced when we were a 14-team league and not in any way thinking about expansion. We were prepared to present a report in March 2020 to our presidents and chancellors. We provided a report to our athletic directors in early February of that year, and then everything stopped (because of the pandemic). We had just a few agenda items with the presidents: ‘Here’s where we are in our football analysis and here’s what we think are our next steps’. Then everything got shelved for a year and a half as you’re navigating (the pandemic) and then expansion (with Oklahoma and Texas) was upon us.
The base of that consideration remained. We have the ability to function as an eight-game, 16-team, single-division league for the first time. We should use that learning experience. We have the ability to observe the College Football Playoff selection decision-making and evaluation. We should wait to learn from that. We’re going to see bowl access in this format. We’ll continue to work with our media partner (ESPN). [Those are all] important information points, but none of that is [the] one single factor. That’s part of the multitude. Then we get into fairness and balance. [After expansion] we took a 10-year snapshot of wins and losses and [saw] a narrow bandwidth of win-loss percentage over that time. But you get more data points every time you have a season. We now have all 16 [teams], so you’re trying to compare the Oklahoma and Texas records during that time in a different league. All those are factors for consideration, which I think is part of informing the most healthy decision possible.
CBS: Every university and conference is exploring new ways to generate revenue. The Big 12 is considering renaming its conference after a title sponsor. Would the SEC ever consider a name change or title sponsor?
GS: Based on the reaction that our fans have had, I would have to go into witness protection if we did that. I don’t have any sense that our membership is looking for that.
CBS: Does such a move take the heart out of the college athletics?
GS: Oh, when I was Southland (Conference) commissioner, I thought about it then. That was 25 years ago. Now the value proposition wasn’t there and there weren’t a lot of takers. I don’t think I need to comment on somebody else’s decision-making. From our perspective in the SEC, my comment is: we do have a connection to our name still. It’s the southeastern quadrant of the country. Even the SEC moniker, if that became dominant, which it generally is. I’ve had people write me letters — some kind, some unkind — like I’m changing the [conference] name. We’ve not had an agenda. I’ve had people call on an ad hoc basis. ‘What do you think?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, what do you think?’ That doesn’t seem right for us.
CBS: So you discussed a title sponsor to rename the Southland conference?
GS: It was more, ‘could we do this?’ It generated a little bit of buzz, and I couldn’t tell you why we just walked away. You had the Nike Tour back then, right? It was a professional idea but it wasn’t something that was activated.
CBS: How do you feel about the possibility of schools adding company logos to jerseys to help generate revenue?
CBS: We’ve seen the move to the football field sponsor, so I think you’ll see playing surface opportunities. I think that has to be well managed globally. You can’t find the team name with the sponsor logos. It strikes me that the conference name approach is a little bit about the jersey patch before the jersey patches change. I view that these decisions ought to be connected. My Big 12 colleague (Brett Yormark) talked about referee patches. I don’t think those are done independent of jerseys. I don’t think fields should just be ad hoc. We ought to have a more connected conversation. But those rules are driven at an NCAA national level and we have an outcome on one (field advertisements). I would encourage people — and I have — to say we should be philosophically connected on the decision-making for all.
