What Commissioner Greg Sankey Said to Open SEC Media Days

TAMPA — Going into his 12th football season as SEC Commissioner, Greg Sankey entered the main media room inside the Tampa Marriott Hotel on Water Street to address media members and staff members across the 16-team league.

While he never mentioned Arkansas, or any other SEC team by name for that matter, much of what was discussed will directly shape Ryan Silverfield's first few years in Fayetteville.

Whether it's a future nine-game SEC schedule, the ongoing push for federal NIL legislation or the financial realities created by the House settlement, Arkansas finds itself at the center of nearly every major issue facing college football entering the 2026 season.

Opening Monologue

"Good morning, it is good to be with you in Tampa for a Monday morning in July. If you keep track of SEC Football Media Days, this our first time to hold the event in the Sunshine State in Tampa.

Tampa has become home to the Southeastern Confernce for a number of events. I'm reminded staying here in 2009, I was actually at a job search for another commissioners job and my decision making has proven to be wise as I didn't jump at that chance.

The Reliaquest Bowl is one of the longest standing relationships we have in the Southeastern Conference, and we added the Gasparilla Bowl to our postseason inventory just a few years ago, and we actually look forward, as well, to the College Football Playoff National Championship, returning here to Tampa in 2029.

All of that is a tribute to the work of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, and it's their work that brings us here today, but also led to a decision that, over the next two years, our women's gymnastics championship will be held here in Tampa, both in March of 2027 and 2028.

Enhancing student-athlete opportunity for generations to come. 🎓

🎙️ @GregSankey #SECMD26 x #ItJustMeansMore pic.twitter.com/XGX52yydMA
— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) July 20, 2026

"The first piece of news this morning, that next year, SEC Football Media Days in 2027 will return to Nashville, Tennessee.  And those dates will be July 12th through the 15th. Before I jump into the issues of the day, I think it's worth taking a moment to recognize what has been accomplished by the student athletes, our universities, our coaches, and our administrators, during the preceding year, in part because of 2005, 2025, 2026 academic year, it was gonna be one of those years that serves as a defining chapter in the history of college athletics.

Our institutions had to navigate historic level of change, while continuing to provide outstanding educational and competitive opportunities for student athletes.  And that means that on the field, we experienced a conference record 13 team national championships. Our previous high was 10, We have 22 sports in which we sponsor championships, and over half of those, right now, are national champions.

We place more teams than any other conference in the college football playoff.  Well, we didn't achieve the ultimate destination of a national championship, the strength of this conference in football is clear. And when you go beyond football and look at postseason participation and NCAA championships throughout our sports inventory, it is typical that Southeastern Conference teams fill most or the highest number of teams represented in those brackets.

Those accomplishments are extraordinary, and there are representation of the commitment made by young people who choose to enroll in our universities, both to be educated and to fulfill their competitive expectations.  The work of our coaches, the dedication of our athletics administrators, and the leadership at the president and chancellor and board level throughout our conference.

That change that I referenced at a historic level included navigating, implementation of the house settlement that a year ago was very much brand new, but we also continued to invest in the student athlete experience, medical support, mental wellness, care, and initiatives, leadership development.

Today, we launch an even more extensive education program around sports wagering, to help young people and our staff members avoid the pitfalls of what is becoming more culturally accepted around the area of sports gambling.  As a league, we added over 1,200 new scholarships. Those are not football scholarships. those were in sports other than football.

Over 700 of those new full scholarship experiences, for women's student athletes.  It's one of the positive changes from the house settlement that has been missed, the opportunity to increase scholarship numbers and provide full scholarships in sports, typically Olympic sports that used to be partial scholarship environments. That commitment continues to be reflected in a high level of interest in what happens around our competition. Southeastern Conference football remains the second most watched sports property in the United States, trailing only the National Football League.

And we account for just over 40% of the live viewership hours consumed among the four major conferences. Our football programs draw an average of 80,000 fans per game. That's our average number.  And this was the stat of my summer. That's the highest average attendance for any sport league in the world. We're national leaders in attendance in just about every other sport sponsored by the Southeastern Conference.

Across every measure, interest in our league continues to grow. And that's attached to the work of those leaders on our campuses whom I cited a moment ago. These and other achievements provide a solid foundation for our present and our future, but they're not our destination, because we know that success brings with it responsibility.  Our responsibility isn't simply to celebrate victories and championships. Our responsibility is to provide leadership.

The leadership needed to preserve the values, the opportunities, and competitive integrity that made college athletics so meaningful for so many generations.  It's that responsibility and the decisions required to fulfill the responsibility that are my focus this morning. And one of our greatest responsibilities is to establish a stable national framework for college athletics.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey on the future of the conference title game: pic.twitter.com/uvFELBG3SJ
— 𝕋𝕣𝕒𝕧𝕚𝕤 𝕃. 𝔹𝕣𝕠𝕨𝕟 (@Travis_L_Brown) July 20, 2026

For more than six years, those of us in the conference office, the leaders on our university campuses, Southeastern Conference student athletes, and policymakers have worked in good faith seeking the return of national standards through federal legislation.

These efforts have demonstrated not only how complex these issues have become, but also have reinforced my belief that congressional action remains a needed path to provide that long term stability."

COMMENTARY: Since the inception of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) in 2021, student athletes have benefited tremendously. Now, with the House Settlement, it has allowed them to partake in a revenue sharing model, which certainly helps budgeting while building a new roster.

For Arkansas coach Ryan Silverfield going into Year One at Arkansas, it's extremely beneficial that clarity continues to be pursued to have a uniformed set of guidelines to go by for everyone. The resources that were promised to him were apparent upon his hiring with an expanded coaching staff, impressive high school class and transfer portal haul to begin the program rebuild in short order.

"At its core, it sounds like a straightforward objective. One national standard, a national framework with rules that can be consistently enforced, because student athletes, coaches, and universities deserve to compete under consistent standards, regardless of geography.

Over and over, our student athletes tell us the same thing. When they line up for kickoff, tip off in a basketball game, first pitch in the spring, or when they put their feet in the starting blocks that attract me.

They want to know that every competitor, from other teams, from different campers, campuses, across different states, that those competitors are being held to the same standards that apply to them. Among all the press releases, legislative drafts, committee hearings, and political commentary, that message from our student athletes to me, is the clearest message we have heard. Hold everyone to the same standard.

Now, we, and I recognize that a nine game Southeastern Conference football schedule, coupled with our expectation that we maintain a high quality, non conference opponent, creates one of the most...  In fact, I'm gonna scratch what I wrote. It creates, without question, the most demanding sets of football schedules in all of college football."

COMMENTARY: That's one area of familiarity for Arkansas fans and the team in general, considering the Razorbacks have been defending preseason champions of the toughest schedule in the country for what seems like more than a decade now.

Arkansas will open the season against North Alabama before going on what will be a grueling three week test beginning at Utah in Week Two, followed by Georgia inside Razorback Stadium and then travel to Kyle Field to face longtime rival Texas A&M.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey on if there have been talks about the conference breaking away from the NCAA if national legislation can’t get passed:

“They’re real. People have talked about that.” pic.twitter.com/yLSXq4OAak
— 𝕋𝕣𝕒𝕧𝕚𝕤 𝕃. 𝔹𝕣𝕠𝕨𝕟 (@Travis_L_Brown) July 20, 2026

"But these decisions were made after years of thoughtful discussion, careful analysis, and spirited debate, which led us to the conclusion that the nine game schedule was appropriate.  And the nine game schedule reflects confidence in our universities, our student athletes, and in our football programs. It preserves great rivalries, historic rivalries, many of which are played every year. It creates more compelling conference matchups.

It reinforces our long standing commitment. to competitive excellence. When you look at our schedule, no one has created the kind of weekly competition that exists in the Southeastern Conference. It's competition that our fans will experience every week, because we believe we're the best conference in college football.

And if so, we should also embrace the challenges with a difficult and challenging conference schedule, the best schedule in college football. It will challenge our teams, and we'll prepare them for the highest level of competition and reflects who we are as a conference. So whether we discuss legislation, the future of the college football playoff, the future of SEC football.

Our responsibility is not to simply chase the next headline or simply react to the issue of the day. Our responsibility is to make principal decisions that strengthen college football, preserve what makes it special. and position it for long term success, because in just a few weeks, all across our 12 state footprint, the stadiums of the Southeastern Conference will come alive again.

Families will gather. Tailgates will happen. Campuses will fill. Rivalries will be renewed.  New leaders were emerged, new champions will be crowned. And we're at that time when every season begins with the thought of hope and possibility. And our responsibility is to preserve everything that makes those moments possible.

Before I conclude, and we turn to questions, I do want to take a moment, because we're reminded is things happen rapidly in our lives, that as the years go on, we lose some people who are special to us. And we experience that with members of the media who would normally be with us today, but lost in the past year.

Wes Rucker, first, was a Knoxville sports journalist who provided extensive coverage at the University of Tennessee Athletics for over two decades.

Joey Knight was here in Tampa, a longtime sports writer for the Tampa Bay Times and the Tampa Tribune. He covered the Tampa Bay Area sports scene for over three decades, and we lost both Wes and Joey back in February.

We also lost Philip Marshall. Philip covered the SEC, mostly Auburn's athletic program, for more than half a century. In fact, Philip goes back to the days of the SEC skywriters Tour, the predecessor of SEC Media Days, back as early as 1977.

I respect the work you do, sometimes it's tough, but we mourn the losses of your colleagues. And I want to say thank you to each of you, no matter what questions you might ask, for joining us over the next few days.  I want to say thank you to the SEC staff. We kind of go from event to event, never losing the focus on the importance of supporting outstanding experiences.

We are here as staff to make your media day successful, and please call upon any of us if we might help you do better in engaging in your work.  And with that is, as our tradition, I'm going to turn to Kevin, who moderate questions, but I will note that this is also the reminder that Bob Holt used to be quick right up here with that first question. Another reminder of someone special to us all."

Editor's Note: This will be updated with his question-and-answer session with reporters later this morning.

Q: How real are the conversations within the SEC about potentially breaking away from the college structure as we know it? In any way is that being used as leverage in the conversations you're having with Congress about the bill?

Sankey: So you phrase the question of how real. So I'll take that as like real or not real.

So they're real. People have talked about that. They've opined about the frustrations that bring them to the point of saying we should look at something significantly different.

I do not believe that is a leverage point. I think that's just honest communication.

I would prefer that stay in a meeting room or on a videoconference, not be part of the D1.ticker the next morning, but I don't control all of that.

What I think is important is those comments represent a high level of frustration with the circumstance in which we find ourselves.

We have regulated ourselves more progressively than other colleagues by choice across our league. We've had different academic eligibility restrictions in the past. So we have different transfer restrictions in the past.

Some of what you hear comes out of a culture that we can regulate ourselves. But the frustration that exists is when you go to a meeting eight years ago, we want to change the volunteer coach rule in a Division I setting, the Division I membership can't see their way to that change, so that creates risk.

I think some of the transition into this five-year eligibility model, it happened when it did and the way it did, that magnifies frustration.

We went through a College Football Playoff discussion for years and introduced a 12-team Playoff where it just sat because colleagues couldn't move. They had reasons, but those reasons really didn't resonate.

So understand that beneath the observation is frustration.

But I also know the pride with which I spoke of 13 national championships, and there is meaning and value, and I do think a national expectation that we participate in a national organization.

But that national organization must function in a healthy manner; otherwise, that simmering will continue.

Q: Thinking about the ninth game, what is your degree of confidence, if any, that the College Football Playoff Selection Committee will consider that metric very heavily? How much do you feel like your head coaches are embracing that challenge?

Sankey: Well, they're here, so the fact that our head coaches are here tells me they're embracing the challenge.

I'm actually one who believes competitors want great challenges. I'm unapologetic about that reality.

As it relates to the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, we have heard about strength of schedule, strength of record. I think there were some references for strength of conference.

We had what I'll call an unsatisfactory conversation with members of the College Football Playoff staff and some of their advisers in Destin. That's rehashing from a couple months ago. That's not a secret. That's a reminder of that process needing to continually improve.

My confidence is that people will act with integrity. I do think we have questions about the understanding of the strength and rigor associated with competing in the Southeastern Conference.

Q: One of the key words coming out of the spring meetings was "transparency." You referenced it. Has there been a thought or conversation about inside the conference, school to school, that the conference be more transparent so at least they know what is going on inside?

Sankey: So from a transparency standpoint, Eddie asked me a question that was a conversation that wasn't meant to be transparent.

I think natural transparency seems to be taking place.

I'm not certain I know what particular topic. Not everything we discussed is simply going to be published. There are reasons for confidentiality.

You have the freedom to ask me anything this morning, so I'll be as transparent as I can be in this moment.

How is that for an answer? I do get to decide what I answer, though.

Q: You've obviously done your due diligence on the 16-team Playoff model. What are some of the hurdles or things that you need to be informed on to consider the 24-team Playoff model?

Sankey: I went through that list in the midst of my remarks, so I won't rehash most of those.

We don't have any idea at this point of the clear media interest in an expanded Playoff. We do know, we do have an understanding of what happened when we went to 12. We considered other formats. So that's one.

Second is the calendar is challenging. There is a line embedded in the current version of the Protect College Sports Act that the football season be fully completed by Jan. 8. If you think through the implications of particularly that date, remember the American Football Coaches Association introduced that idea, produced a frustrated phone call from me to Craig Bohl about the lack of consultation.

But you have to find places to play the games. You have to think about whether overlap of those games when they're played is acceptable or not.

I tend to think the access point is important for young people. As we've had conversations in smaller groups, they can answer, "I'd rather have a chance than not have a chance." But there are limits on the number of games you can play over time.

So answering that first smaller set of the points in my remarks is fully on my mind. That smaller set of points hopefully filters it a bit more.

Q: Transparency has been the term thrown around this morning. Accountability, too. Where does that fit in with officiating, the questionable calls that have happened the last couple years? Is there any plans to create more transparency for calls either during or after games to provide some clarification?

Sankey: Every week officials go on the football field, the basketball court, softball field, baseball field, and everything they do is transparent, everything they do is transparent. You can't hide if you put on an officiating uniform.

We've added — in fact, we've been the innovators in replay with the motivation to get it right. That provides transparency, as well. In fact, we're the conference that implemented at the collegiate level in our tournament the automated balls and strikes format. Can't be any more transparent than that reality. We pushed that to seek the opportunity to allow that in the regular season.

We'll continue to do that. There are limits to transparency.

When an error is made in a game, scholarships are not pulled for a player for one incident, they don't lose their starting job. So every week we provide feedback to officials. We don't publish that.

I also have a great deal of respect for people that are willing to put themselves in the venues of the Southeastern Conference to conduct that activity.

I think we have found a reasonable balance. Reasonable people can disagree with that.

The elements that we've added and the steps we've taken to try to get it right are evidence of our motivation and our willingness, quite candidly, to be transparent.

Q: With the College Football Playoff, revenue sharing and conference expansion all changing the sport at once, what issue will most define the SEC over the next five years?

Sankey: The leadership of which I spoke moments ago. Our ability to be both influential and effective through change.

I'd like to win every championship. When I interviewed for this job in 2015, that was one of the three components. First was graduate every student-athlete; second was win every championship — 13 of 22 is pretty good — and change the world, which is about influence.

I want us to continue to use that influence as I've described, not just the long-term health of college football during a time of change, but also all of college athletics, all 22 of our championship sports.

History is a really educational and informative element at this point. We're dealing with things that have persisted for a century. Go back and read the history of college athletics from the early 1900s, 1910s, '20s and '30s.

Even that list you provided: What does the postseason look like? What are the health and safety issues? What happens around gambling? Educational structure? What about student-athlete support?

I think we do a better job now than has ever been done in college athletics, but we haven't achieved that level of stability as we go through change that's needed at this point.

Sign up to our free newsletter, and follow us on Facebook, X (Twitter) for the latest

Add us as a preferred source on Google