SEC Media Days To Be Held In Dallas In Longhorns First Season
Change continues to come to the Southeastern Conference with the arrival of Texas and Oklahoma in 2024. That's not the only significant modification being made to the conference in the not-so-distant future.
Commissioner Greg Sankey announced Monday during his introductory press conference in Nashville, Tenn., that SEC Media Days would be heading to Dallas, Texas for the 2024 year. The event will take place in the Omni Hotel from July 15-18, per Sankey.
In recent years, SEC Media Days has it the road throughout the southern region. The event was held in Birmingham, Ala., at The Hyatt Regency Birmingham and later The Wynfrey Hotel from 2001-17 and again in 2021. In 2018, media days took place at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, Ga., and later returned to the Peach State in 2022.
This year, media days made it clear that locations would be ever-changing after it was announced that it would take place at the Grant Hyatt in downtown Nashville. Sankey did not specify if the event would return to Alabama or Georgia in the future, or if other locations throughout the region would be in line to host.
For the first time since 2012, the SEC will expand to represent more teams. Texas and Oklahoma made headlines in 2021 back in Birmingham when The Houston Chronicle reported that both programs were looking to leave the conference after their grant of rights deal with the Big 12 ceased following the 2024 season.
The Sooners and Longhorns negotiated a deal with the new Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark to break their media rights contract a year early to join the SEC on July 1, 2024. While the Big 12 is losing its two flagship programs, the conference welcomes four newcomers for the 2023 season in BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati, and Houston, bringing the total number of programs to 14.
Once Texas and Oklahoma leave following the 2023-24 athletic year, the Big 12 will feature 12 teams for the first time since 2011 following the departures of Nebraska and Colorado. A year later, Texas A&M and Missouri left to join the SEC, bringing the conference total to 14 schools.
While the SEC will welcome several changes, the location of the conference title game looks to be locked in for the foreseeable future. Sankey said the conference was in conversation with Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta to extend the deal for the Atlanta Falcons’ stadium to remain the permanent host of the SEC championship game played in early December. The current contract runs through the 2026 season.
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