MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey kicked off SEC Spring Meetings with a 40-minute availability on Monday night where questions pertaining to the short- and long-term effects of the potential House v. NCAA settlement were lobbed at the commissioner by members of the national media who have been on this story for some time. The deft speaker he is, Sankey only said what he wanted to say and nothing more in response to some of those questions.
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He hit a few other topics. There are two new teams in the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners entering the league come July 1, if you haven’t heard. That was something Sankey joked about as he concludes his first decade leading the league, adding he’d need to replace his Smathers and Branson SEC belt with the previous 14 teams with one that featured all of the new 16.
Aside from that accessory acknowledgement, there were only a couple of cursory mentions of the Red River Rivals and their presence on Monday night.
Sankey’s full comments can be found here, but there were some notes that Texas fans would find informative like…
— Sankey’s opening statement included this passage toward the beginning: “It’s been nearly three years since we came to the announcement of growth to a 16-team league if you go back to August of ’21. Shortly after that announcement was made, we began inviting both athletics directors to join our athletics directors meetings. First, remotely. Then in January ’22, Joe (Castiglione) and Chris (Del Conte) began joining us on a regular basis. Fast forward last year in Destin, Jay Hartzell and Joe Harroz, the two presidents from Oklahoma and Texas, began meeting with our presidents and chancellors and they’ve been active since that time. We expect they’ll both have a full Destin contingent: head coaches, faculty reps, communication directors, senior administrators here this week. It’s a sign we’re about to end one chapter and begin another.”
That was the real extent of his specific mention of UT and OU.
— Kickoff times for games “primarily (in) the first three weeks of the season” should be expected on May 30. “There should be some other games in there, a few surprises probably for the season ahead.”
He added the league is acting “more intentional and out ahead of kickoff time announcements for fans.” Six-day and 12-day windows aren’t totally going away, but any games that might be “flexed” only have the afternoon and evening windows as options. Fans will have a great sense on if their team is playing any 11 a.m. games this summer.
“You’re going to know those by mid-June,” Sankey said of early kicks.”We’re going to know a set of afternoon and evening kick times subject to some flexibility. Then the remaining games will be in that flex, afternoon and evening.”
— Scheduling probably won’t get much attention during these meetings since it is accounted for the next two seasons.
— He mentioned there will be a “discussion about student-athlete availability reporting.” This is in response to the proliferation of legalized sports gambling and how it has had concrete effects on on various athletic departments. He doesn’t expect a final decision, and he didn’t call it “injury reporting” citing privacy issues. Sports involved would be football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, volleyball, and softball. The Big 10 implemented availability reports for the 2023-24 athletic season. A question about prop betting on college sports followed, and — like he did on many subjects — Sankey said there would be a “conversation” about it.
— House case. House case. House case. Sankey, continually deft and saying only as much as he wanted to, went point by point on the implications of the case, how he might want to navigate the political environment on Capitol Hill to address issues facing collegiate athletics, and much more. There are Title IX implications as well especially when it comes to revenue sharing. This was the main focus of the nationally-aligned reporters in the room. Sankey was limited in what he could say considering the settlement has not been approved in the courtroom yet.
A larger theme that Sankey addressed was the desire for more national guidance as opposed to the current patchwork, state-by-state system that has Texas with a different set of rules than, say, Tennessee. He told reporters he has phone numbers of a number of United States representatives and senators, a major change from six years ago.
— There was a quality zinger when he was asked about Georgia quarterback Jaden Rashada suing Florida head coach Billy Napier: “I’m not a fan of lawsuits. That’s what I think.”
— How might collectives exist in the future? “We’ll see.”
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— Sankey spoke plenty about other sports including men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, and softball. The possibility of getting more than the record 11 the SEC placed into the NCAA baseball tournament in 2025 was brought up, especially with two 2024 at-large selections in Texas and Oklahoma joining the league. He advocated for his league but pushed back against the idea that he wanted to eliminate automatic qualifiers for mid-majors.
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