TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey said Monday that leaders of the powerhouse league are having \u201creal\u201d conversations about breaking away from the rest of college sports, though that is not the preferred solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re real,\u201d Greg Sankey said Monday of talks with school presidents involving the SEC separating itself from the rest of the NCAA. \u201cThey\u2019ve opined about the frustrations that bring them to the point of saying we should look at something significantly different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sankey\u2019s 45-minute meeting with reporters to kick off SEC football media days detailed the several issues that college sports is trying to find solutions for: Congressional legislation, litigation stemming from the new five-year eligibility rule, the future of the College Football Playoff and an overall lack of transparency regarding name, image and likeness payments to players.<\/p>\n
Sankey acknowledged the conference\u2019s frustration with the handling of all those issues, but also touted the league\u2019s 13 national championships won last season across a variety of sports as a key reason it\u2019s in no rush to move away from the current framework.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is meaning and value and I do think a national expectation that we participate in a national organization,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that national organization must function in a healthy manner; otherwise, that simmering will continue\u201d.<\/p>\n
Duke still stinging from not getting selected to College Football Playoff after winning ACC title<\/p>\n
The SEC has produced a 10-point paper about changes it would like to see to the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation in the Senate. The SEC and Big Ten are negotiating over with lawmakers over potential tweaks.<\/p>\n
The SEC argues the bill does not go far enough in limiting the possibility of lawsuits against conferences and schools, and also needs better language to preempt state laws in favor of a national one regarding the tens of millions in NIL payments now so common at the top of college sports.<\/p>\n
Sankey called the rollout of the recent NCAA rule that rewrote eligibility standards and has induced lawsuits \u2014 players mainly get five years to play five seasons \u2014 \u201cmagnifies frustration\u201d among some in the SEC.<\/p>\n
The SEC remains the Power Four\u2019s only holdout over expanding the 12-team playoff to 24. Sankey said more research is needed, especially regarding \u201cmedia interest\u201d \u2014 likely shorthand for media rights interest \u2014 in adding more games.<\/p>\n
There is also the underlying issue of what an expanded playoff would do to conference title games. Symbolic of the wide range of opinions on that topic, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said in his own media session that he favored conference play-in games to determine CFP spots and he doesn\u2019t think title games should be put on the chopping block.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrowing those away so you can get a bad matchup between 24 and 18 doesn\u2019t make sense to me,\u201d Drinkwitz said.<\/p>\n
Sankey said he also wants more transparency about who pays players and for what. Among the SEC\u2019s proposed changes to the Senate bill would be clearer guidelines for paying players, including \u201cNIL, pay-for-play (which is not allowed), revenue sharing and other forms of compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commissioner conceded that the SEC is not bent on getting its way regarding every issue that college sports is trying to solve. But as one of the biggest, richest and most influential leagues in a quickly changing business, it does want to lead the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we do a better job now than has ever been done in college athletics,\u201d Sankey said. \u201cBut we haven\u2019t achieved that level of stability as we go through change that\u2019s needed at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey said Monday that leaders of the powerhouse league are having \u201creal\u201d conversations about breaking away from the rest of college sports, though that is not the preferred solution. \u201cThey\u2019re real,\u201d Greg Sankey said Monday of talks with school presidents involving the SEC separating itself from the … Continue reading Could the SEC really break away? Commish says conversations are real but that\u2019s not what they want<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1526381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-07-22 12:57:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1526381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1526386,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526381\/revisions\/1526386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1526381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1526381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1526381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}