Greg Sankey comments on further expansion at SEC spring meetings
Greg Sankey has a number of topics on the docket as coaches, athletic directors, and school presidents from the league descend on Destin, Florida, for SEC spring meetings.
Chief among them? What to do with the SEC conference schedule when Oklahoma and Texas join the fold. Will the league play 8 or 9 conference games? That’s up for (hot) debate. Though it’s certainly not the only thing.
One thing that isn’t? Expansion.
Per The Action Network’s Brett McMurphy, expanding the SEC beyond 16 schools is something that has “not been at the forefront at all” as the league’s power brokers get together.
SEC's Greg Sankey on expanding beyond 16 schools: "It's not been at the forefront at all" & it isn't an active thought process for the SEC. "We are highly attentive" of what's going on around the country
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) May 30, 2023
The Big Ten hasn’t necessarily closed down shop after adding USC and UCLA last summer. The Big 12 is pulling every lever it can to try and get one of the remaining Pac-12 schools to jump ship and chase money. The sitting president at the University of Nebraska said in an interview with the Omaha World-Herald last week he thinks “big things” will happen in the next year.
“I think Big Ten football, through the chancellors and presidents, has made the decision to try to be national,” Carter told the World-Herald. “How big should it be? I don’t have the answer to that. Do we need four more Pac-12 teams that want to join? Time is going to tell.”
But while the rest of the country waits for the next shoe to drop, the SEC seems to be in a good place.
For one, the Big Ten’s recent bit of expansion was more reactive than anything. It was in response to the Texas/Oklahoma add from the SEC. The rest of the Power 5 is chasing the SEC on all fronts.
Titles are dominated in the league, true not just in football. The SEC will be the crown jewel of ESPN’s programming. The research firm Navigate predicted last spring that the SEC will be distributing more than $100 million in revenue per school by 2028.
Unless (until?) the ACC comes undone, the SEC might feel there’s nothing else that needs to be done from an expansion standpoint.