All Hogs

Sankey turns back on very fans who are why SEC exists

Arkansas faithful not only ones with upturned stomachs at commissioner's post

Kent Smith

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey speaks to the media at the 2024 SEC Football Kickoff on Monday, at the Omni Dallas Hotel in Dallas.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey speaks to the media at the 2024 SEC Football Kickoff on Monday, at the Omni Dallas Hotel in Dallas. / James D. Smith (SEC)
In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has done a lot of good for the conference and built up a lot of good will with the fans over the years, but this past weekend he really struggled to read the room.

Saturday morning, as ESPN had its talking heads all over the internet on a social media blitz trying to paint their bosses as the good guys in the shutdown of Disney based channels on YouTube TV, including ABC, ESPN and the SEC Network, Sankey came out against fans of the Arkansas Razorbacks and the rest of the SEC by jumping into the game as if he were a company employee as well.

It was a terrible look on his behalf. It was certainly tone deaf with SEC fans whose love of college football is being used as the ultimate pawn by ESPN to jack up prices once again on TV providers.

Sankey knows that is the case, so why would he get in the middle of a dispute between SEC fans who are tired of having sports used for leverage to hurt them financially, especially during an extreme nationwide financial crisis, and the company that is looking to extort more money.

What makes it worse is how disengenuous Sankey comes off. First off, everyone knows there is zero chance he doesn't already have a premium ESPN account for free as the SEC's commissioner.

He wasn't up Saturday morning trying to figure out how to upgrade his plan so he could watch SEC teams on his televisions. Second, and an even bigger clue he is straight up lying in his Disney shill to SEC fans, is the fact he claims to have saved money.

The needed upgrade to the ESPN App account is at least $6 extra per month if a fan already had the original ESPN + Disney Plus + Hulu bundle. If someone just added the app with the required ESPN Unlimited plan, which is what a lot of people likely did in a panic, it's an extra $30 on top of all the current bills people have.

And that's to get access to software that is anything but user friendly. The entire game was a constant reminder of how much YouTube TV was sorely missed.

It was almost bad enough to make just listen to the game on the radio while watching other conferences and hope it doesn't affect basketball too much.

Of course, the timing is highly calculated. ESPN recently separated some of its content, apparently anything involving the SEC and its newly acquired handful of WWE premium live events, and stuck them behind an even bigger pay wall on their app as a huge cash grab. Before, fans could watch SEC games on the normal ESPN app platform.

Sure, this little skirmish could have been had during the summer when things could have been settled in time to not really affect the customers who are keeping ESPN afloat. However, what's a battle without intentionally hurting people to leverage them into either dropping YouTube TV or shoving a pile of money into Disney's hands against their will.

What Disney isn't calculating is not only is it creating further ill will with a fan base that largely has turned on the company over the years, but it's also picking a fight it's probably not going to be able to win at the next bidding for whatever form the SEC takes when the next TV rights deal rolls around roughly nine years from now.

YouTube isn't going to forget this. Disney took its shot at their company and will ultimately lose in the long run.

The Mouse will get outbid for SEC properties next time. YouTube has already begun sweeping up NFL properties and can easily see how important college sports is to keeping ESPN going.

One moment ESPN exists as a sports juggernaut, and the next, it's gone as quickly as Blockbuster went in its battle with Netflix. However, for right now, Disney is alive and well.

It has the SEC commissioner pretending he made the switch from YouTube TV and lying about saving money as if he is a paid employee.

Fans shouldn't forget Sankey turned his back on them and sided with the corporation that wants to eat further into family food budgets when many across the SEC footprint are getting by on razor thin margins with SEC sports bringing the one mental break from all the stress living that type of life brings.

Hogs Feed:

feed

Published
Kent Smith
KENT SMITH

Kent Smith has been in the world of media and film for nearly 30 years. From Nolan Richardson's final seasons, former Razorback quarterback Clint Stoerner trying to throw to anyone and anything in the blazing heat of Cowboys training camp in Wichita Falls, the first high school and college games after 9/11, to Troy Aikman's retirement and Alex Rodriguez's signing of his quarter billion dollar contract, Smith has been there to report on some of the region's biggest moments. 

Home/Football