Greg Sankey focused on 'healthy collaboration' heading into SEC Spring Meetings

Greg Sankey has been Southeastern Conference commissioner for eight years, long enough to understand that he is an administrator, not an autocrat.

There may be a time and place for a commissioner to crack heads. But that time and place does not involve the heads that belong to the university presidents who employ him.

Sankey described his philosophy Sunday as, “speak softly and try to leave the big stick at home.”

Two years of soft speech over the future of the conference football schedule has yet to produce a consensus, which is why the issue will dominate the agenda Tuesday when the SEC convenes in Destin, Florida, for its annual spring meetings.

The league’s 14 voting members and two future members must decide whether to adopt a nine-game conference football schedule or remain at eight games. There are reports the league is unlikely to move to a nine-game schedule in 2024.

Debating the eight versus nine-game model

The schedule has been a topic of discussion for years; it became imperative to decide once the SEC poached Oklahoma and Texas from the Big 12 in July 2021. With those schools scheduled to officially join in 13 months, the SEC must decide soon.

But there is wiggle room, and the SEC, like Congress, never likes to decide before it must. The league typically releases its schedule in August or September of the previous year.

“We have a history of coming together, making decisions (whether unanimous or not) and moving forward,” Sankey told On3. “It does seem somewhat different than what others have experienced of late, but we have to work to bring people together and continue our healthy collaboration.”

The “others” referenced by Sankey are pretty much the rest of intercollegiate athletics, which is wrestling with crises that place the SEC schedule into perspective.

Multiple bills have been introduced in Congress that would usurp the NCAA’s ability to administer NIL.

The executive and judicial branches of the federal government are considering cases that would make the university an employer of the student-athlete instead of a benefactor.

The Pac-12 is looking for a television contract lucrative enough to keep the league together.

The ACC just decided to divide its media revenue based on results on the field, a sop that doesn’t do nearly enough to close the gap between the ACC and the SEC/Big Ten.

Expect ‘healthy debate,’ not fireworks at SEC Spring Meetings

Given the robust financial health of the SEC, as well as a history of working together, Sankey doesn’t expect his members to crank up the volume this week above what he described as “healthy debate.”

Oklahoma and Texas will attend the meetings, 13 months ahead of their entry into the conference. They will not have a vote on the schedule issue (or any other until they are members). But “they have (joined) and will join in straw polls, surveys, working groups to develop (a) direction,” Sankey said.

The SEC has played an eight-game conference schedule since the league added Arkansas and South Carolina to expand to 12 teams in 1992. The advantages of an eight-team format include allowing members to schedule more home games, especially against opponents who aren’t as skilled as SEC schools.

The advantage of moving to a nine-game format is that it would provide more attractive inventory for the networks, not to mention the ticket-buying fans who must sit through Auburn playing Mercer, Georgia playing Samford, Alabama playing Austin Peay, etc.

In addition, come College Football Playoff time, it would allow the SEC to be judged by the same yardstick as the Big 12, Pac-12, and Big Ten, all of which play nine-game conference schedules. This will be especially important next year, when the playoff expands to a 12-team format.