THE MODERATOR: At this time I would like to introduce the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, Mr. Greg Sankey.
GREG SANKEY: Thank you. Welcome to Atlanta. It's good to see everyone.
I'm going to try to be efficient in my remarks. I'm reminded of the great American philosopher Vincent Spicoli who once observed that: You're here and I'm here, so it's really our time. Talk about that which is on my mind and try to save you some time as well.
We should never take for granted that we're able to gather together after what we've experienced the last two years. We want to make sure this is a valuable time, so we have staff and volunteers to support your effort. Please reach out if they may be of assistance.
Good to be in Atlanta, a city of history for the Southeastern Conference. It was here in 1933 that the conference conducted its first annual meeting. It wasn't annual at that point, it became annual. It's also the site of the conference's first-ever men's basketball tournament, that also happening in 1933. It's happened here 12 times since, including one interrupted by a tornado.
It's been the home of our football championship game since 1994. We moved Media Days, which doesn't happen a lot in conferences, moved it in 2018 and planned to be back in 2020, until COVID hit, and it's great to be back here today.
We're excited for the start of the season. You're going to hear that 14 more times from this podium, I expect, right? Part of the excitement being here is on September 3rd, Oregon and Georgia will play in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. As you look to the end of the season, the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl will host one of the College Football Playoff finals on December 31st.
When we wrapped up in Indianapolis, Georgia's football team on the third consecutive national championship in football, by an SEC team. Just because it's fun to remember, LSU in 2019, Alabama in 2020, and Georgia in 2021. At least those seasons. I thought that was great.
That would be my talking point about how excited we are about the quality of competition. Then I was reminded that members of this conference from 2007 to 2010 had four different teams win four consecutive national championships: LSU, Florida, Alabama and Auburn.
If you look at the BCS CFP era, you add in Tennessee in 1998, we've had six different football programs earn national championships, which communicates the depth of our conference competitively. I'll let you make the comparisons between us and our colleagues as it relates to national championship success in football.
As we watch the college football world change around us, we are absolutely proud of the competitive team and individual achievements earned through the Southeastern Conference, be that on the football field, women's basketball court, baseball field, the world championships in track and field showcase young people who have had an experience in this conference, and every other one of our 21 championship sports.
The reality, though, is away from the games and the playing fields and the courts and the tracks and the courses, it's been quite a summer. Actually quite a year for those of us who write about, those of you who write about, those of us who work in college athletics.
Go back to June of 2021, a Supreme Court decision in Alston versus the NCAA. The onset of name, image and likeness took place on July 1st through the onset of different state laws and the alternation of potential plans of NCAA governance in the aftermath of the Alston decision.
Later in July we as a conference issued membership invitations, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Texas, to join the Southeastern Conference effective July 1st, 2025.
We saw creation of the NCAA's Constitution Committee. We watched more membership transition among conferences in Division I. The NCAA Transformation Committee was announced in December. We had another uptick in COVID, which introduced disruption and felt eerily similar to what we experienced through the 2021 year.
We had, as you know, consideration of expansion to the College Football Playoff format that ultimately was not adopted under the College Football Playoff governance structure.
This spring, the NCAA announced the transition of its president, NCAA President Mark Emmert, and the commencement of a search to fill that role.
And then on July 30, right after I got to the lake to relax, the announcement came that the Big Ten would expand its membership to include USC and UCLA, which created a few busy weeks for you and me as we tried to separate truth from fiction. You tried to figure out what your competitors knew or didn't know, what they were reporting. Tried to figure out the different agendas. You worked to post stories quickly.
So much for our summer vacation.
That brings us here to begin the talking season ahead of college football. In preparation for my comments, I went back to my first Media Days remarks in 2015. I had been to any number of those as a member of the SEC staff, but I started reading through each year's comments. 2015, again here in 2018, a couple times since, I started not with Mr. Spicoli's quote but with a reference to Bob Dylan's: The times they are a-changin'.
I never lost sight of that reality. I'm not sure we all understand what is intended by those lyrics or conveyed by the phrases that the wheel's still in spin, but times are changing more rapidly than ever.
You saw some of that play out this spring. At our Destin meetings, we started with a small meeting of our head football coaches. I went in with a very clear focus on a message, probably not the message that you thought I would communicate, maybe not the message they thought they'd hear, but one that was clear and direct.
As I walked into the room, I learned that someone had tweeted our head football coach seating chart, and the trending topic on Twitter became not the Destin spring meetings but look at this football coaches' seating chart.
As we refocus, here is what I told our coaches. It is never going to be the same, but it doesn't have to be the way that it is. We're dealing with complex problems that won't be solved by complaints, by accusations, by finger pointing, or by offering simple solutions.
What is needed now is collaboration, deep thinking about real world solutions, and everyone participating in the conversation.
The outcome, and I shared this in real time, was we had some of the most in-depth conversations with full participation through our spring meetings that I've ever experienced. That includes not only our football coach, but our women's basketball coaches, men's basketball coach, our Student-Athlete Leadership Council representatives, faculty representatives, senior administrators and ultimately our presidents and chancellors that week.
Each group recognizes that it's never going to be the way that it was, but it doesn't have to be the way that it is.
In that conversation, we recognized that all too often what sounds like an easy solution to these complexities fails to consider the impacts that those easy answers have on many other matters.
Frankly, in college athletics, we're here because we've either pushed aside some of those conversations and decisions or we've dealt with the easy solutions rather than the complexities that account for the full breadth of outcomes and consequences.
In this environment, I'm proud to say in my view, I think in the view of our entire membership, the Southeastern Conference is stronger now than at any other time in our history.
We're poised to grow to 16 members on July 1st, 2025. This expansion keeps the SEC in contiguous states which supports reasonable geography among like-minded universities and keeps us confident that fan interest will continue to grow in our communities, in our region, in this country and literally across the globe.
There's no sense of urgency in our league, no panic and reaction to others' decisions. We know who we are. We are confident in our collective strength, and we are uniquely positioned to continue to provide remarkable experiences, educationally and athletically, along with world-class support to student-athletes.
It is a compliment that people from all across the country and all across the globe want to be a part of the Southeastern Conference. We understand our fan base and our region. We have an outstanding relationship with our media partners effective in the fall of '24, Disney, ABC, and ESPN, with a focus on how we continue to strengthen the SEC Network.
