Greg Sankey updates stance on importance of regional ties to college athletics

Greg Sankey will go to bat for his conference, the SEC, seven days a week and twice on Sunday. The SEC commissioner wants to maintain regional ties to college athletics amid all of the change across the country.

He noticed the changes across other Power Four conferences going coast to coast. Notably the Big Ten, which went to 18 teams and added four west coast schools from the old Pac-12.

Regional rivalries are a fabric of college football and college athletics in general. Sankey wants to keep it that way.

“No, I think it’s still real,” Sankey said. “I think what we’ve done in the Southeastern Conference is taken a sport that was historically based regionally and we’ve elevated ourselves nationally and even internationally from an interest standpoint.

“We have a Netflix opportunity that will emerge in July that has a global reach to it. We want to continue to build, but I just was on radio talking about you can get from one end of the league to another on an airplane in two hours. When we expanded, we added 10 minutes to a flight. Others are going coast to coast.”

Sankey is no stranger to expansion of course. The SEC added Texas and Oklahoma to get to 16 teams in the most recent round of realignment.

But ‘be where your feet are’ is the messaging. Sankey says to improve what’s around you and just expand to expand.

“I’ve been in the airport in Dallas and Chicago watching other conferences — volleyball teams, it was last fall — transiting the conference,” Sankey said. “That’s not the way we’re functioning. I think if you want to challenge yourself at a high level, spend your time in academic commitments and athletic preparation rather than on airplanes. There’s now one place to be and that’s the Southeastern Conference.”

Sankey just wants what’s best for the SEC in his current role. The hope is there is a trickle down effect.

“I think I represent our conference well,” Sankey said. “I can go back though and point to things now and in the past where I do understand the big picture and I’m trying to balance the challenges that we have as a league, the challenges that we have at the highest competitive end, with the responsibility for leading in a significant role across college athletics. I hope others accept that responsibility.”