From Digital Drive: Greg Sankey, Southeastern Conference commissioner

On Wednesday's edition of TexAgs Live, Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey joined us at 2025 SEC Media Days. Sankey shed light on the proposed executive order on NIL reform, the possibility of expanding the CFP and his thoughts on Texas A&M.

Key notes from Greg Sankey interview

• I saw Zach Brown Band in April up at The Pinnacle in Nashville. I saw the Eagles at The Sphere. That was my second time at The Sphere. I saw U2 there in April as well. Monday night, we are going to Birmingham near our downtown office location. You have Toto, and in between is Christopher Cross. You forget how many of those classic ‘80s songs they’re a part of.
   
• I had the opportunity to spend the day with President Donald Trump on June 8. I was with the Notre Dame athletic director, Pete Bevacqua, and we had conversations about what’s happening in college sports. He’s attended games. I think all of the games he’s been to have had SEC teams. You’ve seen reports that there was going to be a College Sports Commission, and also a report about an imminent executive order. I kind of put them off to the side. You have to see if something’s coming and then what it is. I try not to react too much to the social media stuff.
   
• I joined the SEC staff in November 2002. We went through the first recruiting cycle in 2002-2003. I don’t think Twitter existed then. E-mail did. We'd take in what was happening on a recruiting weekend, and at that point, everything would cause your blood pressure to spike. But those things happen, and we deal with them responsibly. Just because something’s on social media doesn’t mean it's accurate. You’ve seen stuff like that on a Wednesday, and then on Friday. There’s a lot more context and information that says what was on a particular platform wasn’t close to being correct.
   
• In my remarks, I had a line on Monday that was in a historic transformational moment in college sports. I know enough of the history of college sports that you can identify those moments. One of the problems we’ve experienced over the past 50 years is that most of the change is driven externally. That’s a bit of a personal frustration, but it's an acknowledgment. Things like Title IX in the ‘70s or Regents vs. NCAA, that changed the TV construct and some of the NIL trust issues. It's hard for some people to step into a new reality because the former system is perceived to be working well.
   
• Now, how do you work through change, ideas and relevant directions? It’s a challenge for all of us. There was a time last year during September, on a video conference with presidents and chancellors. I said, “Hey, I wake up every day, bearing the burden of a 90-year organization that's regionally central in thought and nationally prominent in our reality.” That’s a shared responsibility, and it’s not all about me. I don't think it should be. When you're in that position, you recognize that a quarterback or coach gets a lot of credit and a lot of blame. So that's our reality, but we share that responsibility
   
• There are days I wake up really excited about the opportunity, and some days it’s like, “Man, how did I get myself into this one?”
   
• I think the transfer issue has ripple effects on economic activity. I think it speaks to the core of college athletics around meaningful education, building a legacy and becoming a part of a community. That’s what college does for people on campus. For young men and women who show up as freshmen and go through that experience from adolescence to adulthood. You obtain a degree, but not just the degree, the education you gain inside and outside the classroom.
   
• If you move from semester to semester or year to year, you lose credit hours. That narrows your educational opportunities, alters your educational focus and changes the opportunity to build a legacy. I’m thinking of young people I’ve seen dramatically win games or be on the receiving end of a pass/shot that went in or a home run, then they leave for a couple of bucks, potentially. What they didn’t see is that their legacy, had they stayed and built it, would’ve been a much greater asset to them over time.
   
• One way to do that is not to go into lockdown mode, but to change the transfer freedom with good rationale, tied to our academic mission and the values of higher education, that still allows someone to make a change if they're not in the right place. It is not something that's facilitated on a term-by-term basis.
   
• For the CFP, my legacy position was putting just the best 12 teams. I couldn’t win that fight because there are so many interests involved, and you have to compromise. When we were going through expansion dialogue in 2019-2020, I was like, “Hey, we don't need to go beyond four.” If you look at last year, we would’ve been fine. The ACC and Big 12 wouldn’t have anybody in, but we were fine. I think there were enough teams like Ohio State with support that could play for a national championship in that system.
   
• We have the allocation for all five conference champions being included. That’s the basis for five. It’s a fundamental part of the agreement. Now, it's about how many other teams will be selected. That's the issue. It’s self-serving, but we're in this web of mutuality where we provide opportunities to bring people in. I think that can work if they fulfill their commitment to support strong programs.
   
• Interestingly enough, Clemson was brought in out of the top 12. The ACC Champion wasn’t in the top 12. The more that happens, the more problematic it is for conference champions, and typically for the displacement of teams ranked in the 11-12 area. Then that motivates the potential expansion. Whether we stay at 12 or move to 14 or 16, you’re going to have the fundamental five of conference champions. It’s just how many more remain. Is it going to be seven, nine or 11 more? Where we put our emphasis was not on more allocated spots, it is what the selection protocol will be, what information will be used to inform those selections, and whether that can that be improved.
   
• There are two contingencies around the CFP. No. 1, the bowl agreements. No. 2, it's an important piece of information to determine how many conference games we play. This isn’t a context where you see non-conference games discontinued, and the citation is that this won’t hurt us in the selection process if we don't play this game. I think that the CFP’s moment of urgency is to address this notion that the selection process disincentivizes a tough schedule.
   
• You want A&M and Notre Dame to play. It was a great evening. You wanted a different outcome last year. Hoping for the right outcome for the Ags in South Bend.
   
• You don't want teams walking away from those games. You don't want Nebraska not to play Tennessee. You don't want Indiana not to play Virginia. We have some schools thinking of discontinuing when they have 10 power games scheduled in future years. I'd like to see them play, but I understand the concern about the CFP selection.
   
• I knew Buzz Williams when he was an assistant at Arlington in 1993. He made his decision.
   
• I think Texas A&M, College Station, is a great place to be a coach across the board. The kind of support, the leadership and the infrastructure.
   
• I watched Bucky McMillan in high school. I didn’t know him then. I had a conversation with Martin Newton, the AD at Samford, and he couldn’t say enough good things about working with McMillan. Trev Alberts had called me, and Bucky's agent had as well. I went back to Newton and said I wanted to make sure I remembered our conversation right. Seeing Bucky in Destin... He’s calling people for season tickets. It’ll be a different type of basketball. He’s built his basketball pedigree, and it’ll be fun to watch him.