Greg Sankey has a big brain and a zeal for esoteric and complicated issues. Few people in college athletics are more comfortable amidst the weeds of NCAA statutes and politics, which is a big reason why he was the co-chair of the association’s massive undertaking to remake itself last year. When the work gets thick and the administrators’ eyes glaze over, Sankey’s light up.
The Southeast Conference commissioner projects an Ivy League intellect and an aristocratic air. But Sankey’s path to becoming the most powerful figure in college sports is neither privileged nor elite education. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Yankee accent aside, he has more in common with grassroots SEC fans than anyone could have imagined.
The son of a welder spent some of his formative years living in a mobile home in upstate New York near Lake Skaneateles (“Long Lake” in one of the local Iroquois languages). One summer, the Sankey family lived in a garage that had no air conditioning. The Finger Lakes region outside Syracuse is a resort area for many affluent New Yorkers, but the everyday reality of living there was anything but glamorous for Sankey.
He was the first member of his family to go to college. His education meandered through an obscure NAIA school in Texas, a junior college in New York, SUNY Cortland (where he earned an undergraduate degree in education), and Syracuse (a master’s degree in education). He was a reserve catcher at LeTourneau in Longview, Texas, then played basketball at Cayuga Community College.
From there, Sankey was the author of a prodigious rise through the ranks of college sports. He evolved from intern director to golf coach, to director of campus compliance, to low-level conference commissioner, to Mike Slive’s right-hand man, to replace Slive. Known for never raising his voice, he has brought a measured calm to a conference that is anything but. In his current role, he has continued the two legacies of recent SEC commissioners: continuing conference expansion and altering football’s postseason. As the Power 5’s leadership positions shifted and the NCAA’s central authority diminished, he became the most authoritative person in the industry.
Greg Sankey, now 58, has come a long way. A lifetime of decisions, some of them difficult, took him far from New York State and culminated in the commissioner of the most successful athletic conference in the country. He has since evolved into the most powerful person in his line of work, at a time of acute fragility within the company. But as his league grows in numbers, fills its coffers with cash, and helps destabilize the national scene, it’s fair to ask: is the smartest guy in every room and on every committee now driving college sports in the best way, or on the way to ruin? ?
The almost intentional smoothness that Greg Sankey brings to a podium hides an intensity that boils within. Former Mississippi Chancellor Daniel Jones once described Sankey as “uncharismatic” to The New York Times. “It hurt my feelings,” jokes the commissioner, but it fits. To a certain extent.
Sankey may be boring on the outside, but full of ambition and competitiveness on the inside. In this way, an intellectual from upstate New York fits perfectly into the fiercest conference in college sports. He was a college athlete of two sports, albeit at two different schools. The journey away from a mobile home education began by going to play baseball in Texas, attracted by the engineering and religious affiliation program at LeTourneau. “I was looking for adventure,” he says. “An opportunity to spread my wings.”
As Sankey (left) played basketball at Cayuga Community College, he further deepened his interest in coaching.
What he found was an engineering class at 4pm. on Fridays, which brought home the realization that he really didn’t like engineering. He had been pointed in that direction by his father, Jerry, and on his way home that summer the conversation was unpleasant when Sankey told him he was changing majors and schools.
“I was in the garage at our house,” says Sankey. “I told him, ‘I’m going to change course; I want to be a teacher and coach.” He never said no, to his credit. The quote I remember was, ‘You’re missing the boat’.”
Some 15 years later, Sankey brought his father and brother Bill to the 1998 Final Four as his guests. His father then told him that his decision to leave engineering had worked out very well. That move took him back to Cayuga Community College, where he was a tenacious replacement for coach Jim Sigona, who was just 23 years old. Sigona, now in her 35th year at Collin College in Texas, continues to stay in touch with Sankey.
“He was an energy guy, a defender, who took charge,” says Sigona. “He played hard and knew his role. He always had great behavior, whether he played five minutes or 20.”
Sankey’s first attraction to college athletics was reading John Wooden’s book They Call Me Coach, which he won in a school clean table competition at age 11. This was also the case in Cayuga, where Sigona and her team studied.
“He always wanted to sit next to the coaches,” says Sigona. “He was always trying to hear what we were saying. He was a great listener.”
After earning his undergraduate degree at SUNY Cortland and going on to graduate school in Syracuse while simultaneously directing the intramural program at what was then Utica College, Sankey was reading classified ads in the weekly NCAA News in search of his next opportunity. He applied to several of them and received interest for an internship at Northwestern State in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He paid for his own plane ticket to get to the interview and was offered the job.
This led to a full-time job as the athletic department’s director of compliance, tasked with keeping the Devils on the right side of the NCAA rulebook. And when the school parted ways with the coach of its pitiful men’s golf team, Sankey also volunteered for that gig. He was not a very good golfer and knew very little about how to train him. But he plunged into work, trying to build the worst program at the Southland Conference. He gave each player a binder, asking them to map each hole for each practice round. He went through all the binders and provided feedback.
“He was determined,” says Scott Bergeron, Sankey’s first recruit. “He wanted to get the most out of a small golf team in Natchitoches, Louisiana.”
It was not easy. The team was short on equipment and had to drive an hour just to play an 18-hole course. Then came the uniforms. The Northwest state’s colors are purple and orange. Bergeron remembers the uniforms that were ordered arriving late, just before a trip to the first match. When they opened the boxes, they found lime green shirts, white pants, and blue jackets. “He was devastated,” says Bergeron.
The mode of transport was as bad as the uniforms, either piling up cars or sometimes taking one of the two athletic department vans that were in a state of disrepair. Sankey remembers a trip from hell, when Northwestern State was heading from Natchitoches (pronounced “Naka-dish”) to Waco. They were in the van, on Louisiana Highway 6, and stopped for pre-dawn gas in the town of Many, La. Sankey somehow got locked in the convenience store while the rest of the team was outside, and the store clerk was nowhere to be found. found. Later, when the coach and team were back on the road, one of the players in the back told Sankey that they could see the road.
“Well, yes,” Sankey replied.
“No, coach,” said the player. “I can see the road through the floor of the van.”
Somehow, Northwestern State golf leapfrogged Sankey’s clock. The Demons finished second in the Southland Conference in their final season, and Sankey won the Coach of the Year award. Shortly thereafter, he left school to join Southland as an assistant commissioner – but still kept an eye on his former players.
Bergeron recalls the final hole of his last college tournament, the Southland Championship. He came off the 18th green, and Sankey was there with his parents, ready to give him a hug.
“He’s a leader of men,” says Bergeron. “He cared about us. If my mom texted Greg now, he’d return it right away.
Sankey and his wife, Cathy, were married in 1988.
With a brain more into management than coaching, Sankey’s career was defined when he moved to Southland. Within four years, he was named commissioner of the league when he was in his mid-30s. And he soon began to run ragged. Sankey was on his way to SEC headquarters for the first time in 1997 for a meeting in his role in the Southland. He never did. While changing planes in Atlanta, Sankey entered the bathroom and passed out. Running through life on minimal sleep, questionable diet and maximal caffeine, he had a “cardiac episode”, as he put it.
“When you’re waking up on the bathroom floor, you’re not in a good place,” he says dryly. “After that, I spent about six months sitting with people and asking how you balance life. I took notes.”
Of course he took notes. And made changes.
Sankey has become an avid runner (he has run more than 40 marathons) and leaned towards what he calls “leading a quiet life”. This includes more focus on family (he and his wife, Cathy, have two daughters; Hannah is a TV weatherman and Moriah is a teacher). But leading a quiet life does not exclude having ambition. And when the SEC asked him to come aboard as an assistant flight attendant, he accepted.
In late 2014, Mike Slive announced his retirement as SEC commissioner, effective 15. A man who combined youthful skills with people efficiently behind closed doors, Slive was leaving huge shoes to fill. Greg Sankey wanted the job, and many in the league wanted him to get it, but being the crazy guy in Slive’s shadow left him with a pretty murky public persona.
However, Sankey had enough support to get an interview with the SEC committee appointed to choose a new commissioner at the Vanderbilt Chancellor’s residence in Nashville in 2015. Prepared as ever, he thought he was the best at the interview – telling them, among other things, that further expansion was inevitable in college sports, and the SEC needed to be ready for it.
The expectation was for a quick resolution – Sankey could be told he had the job that very day, right after the interview. But time passed without a word, and Sankey began to feel like he wasn’t getting the promotion. He figured he had to leave the league and look for another job – but first he had to make a presentation to SEC presidents covering some league business.
“I started going into a spiral,” he says. “You decide in those moments who you are. I had a job to do; I had some information to provide. I vividly remember picking up my briefcase, straightening my tie, and walking up the steps toward the door [to the meeting].
“A president stopped me and said, ‘Come with me.’ He took me into a living room, sat me on the couch and said, ‘Congratulations’. And the world began to spin. Fast.”
Later that night, Sankey hugged Cathy and told her, “It worked.”
Sankey helped the SEC increase its revenue by $105 million in 2021 to reach a total of $833 million.
Can football be too big? Can you swallow all the rest? Can the desire for more money and power turn America’s favorite sport into a destructive force for all other sports?
Sankey approaches the question the way he approaches most questions – pondering, contemplating his answer, and then formulating it carefully. He is sitting in a conference room at the SEC headquarters in downtown Birmingham, temporarily relocating his workspace there this summer while parts of the building are being renovated.
“I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it,” he says in his deep, monotone voice. “We want it to be special and unique, and it is. We are proud of what we have achieved in football.
“Can it be [too big]? You would be a fool to say no; you would be a fool to say yes.”
For three decades, the SEC has been at the forefront of the college football arms race. In a bigger society is better, no one has worked more tirelessly than the SEC to expand the place of sport in it. Roy Kramer was the commissioner in the 1990s, when the league added Arkansas and South Carolina and became the first conference to split into divisions and hold a championship game. Slive was next, adding Texas A&M and Missouri in 2012 and also serving as a driving force to establish a four-team playoff. Now it’s Sankey’s turn to be an agent of change and a champion of King Football.
In 2020, he set a prudent, patient but persistent course to play sports amid the COVID-19 pandemic. If you poll college leaders on who was most important in saving the 20’s college football season, Sankey would be the landslide winner. “It was incredibly uncomfortable,” says Sankey. “It sucked, but I’m glad we did it.”
Then came Manifest Destiny. In 2021, he facilitated the SEC’s upcoming expansion to 16 teams, adding Texas and Oklahoma for arrival at 25. (Or maybe 24 – stay tuned.) This news shocked the sport – none more so than Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, who had been working closely with Sankey and others on the plan to expand the College Football Playoff. It was devastating news for him.
“I don’t think there’s any way you can put on a good face about being in the same room for months on end and not being able to be upfront about what was going on,” says Bowlsby. “And yet I understand why that wasn’t practical – I probably would have tried to get them to stay. I have to admit to a deep disappointment that he and I didn’t have a conversation earlier. I feel the same way about the two athletic directors [in Texas and Oklahoma]. If you don’t have confidence, it’s hard to have a friendship.”
He is one of the architects of a 12-team college football playoff model that has encountered irritating resistance for a year, but now, last week, is on its way to becoming a reality. And last month, he told Sports Illustrated that he’s open to the possibility of expanding NCAA basketball tournaments — an idea that could go beyond pushing the envelope, to actually tearing it apart.
The SEC’s additions of Texas and Oklahoma nearly hurt the Big 12, which lost its two most valuable brands. It also triggered the massive Big Ten backlash this summer, which is bringing in USC and UCLA and similarly destabilizing Pac-12. With two competing superconferences supported by two competing TV networks (the SEC and ESPN vs. Big Ten and Fox), the arms race has reached a new level. And it’s probably not over.
“Sixteen offers many scheduling options across different sports. We really focused on [Texas and Oklahoma] integration, which is a huge task,” says Sankey. “We also need to think about who adds value. Our vision is that we’re not just going to spend money to add teams to jump to a number. … I don’t think in numbers. I think 16 is healthy. Nobody goes to 17 and gets 17. Eighteen is interesting to manage. Philosophically, we distinguish ourselves as a brand, a great brand made up of really great brands. Does that mean we’ll be 16 forever? History suggests not, but I’m not just going to a number to say we’re going to a number.
“Every time we add, it’s an exponentially greater burden. It’s a balance of scheduling decisions, finances, TV appearances. If you go to 20 and you have to broadcast 10 games on a Saturday, that’s a challenge. You will likely cannibalize your audience. Are you going to pivot and play football games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday? This has a downstream impact. We keep thinking about those things.”
Darwinian consolidation in the pursuit of cash piles damaged the rest of the structure of the Power 5 conference and further unraveled the connective fabric of sports traditions, rivalries and geography. And while that’s happening, Sankey is serving as co-chair of the NCAA’s Transformation Committee, charged with helping to lead this vast college athletic endeavor in times of tremendous upheaval.
Doing both at the same time makes for interesting multitasking. College football has long lacked strong national leadership — and while Sankey is the best man for the job, he has another, more localized job that pays his bills.
“First, you recognize the reality,” says Sankey. “I am the commissioner of the Southeast Conference. No excuses for that, no excuses for how I’ve led and what we’ve accomplished. But I’ve had this life experience [working at various levels of collegiate sports] that has a sensitivity to how we broadly engage and recognize that there are certain responsibilities and expectations that really require the need to adapt. That doesn’t mean we just kick people out [from NCAA Division I]…
“I think it’s good for college football’s wider fan base that we’ve uniquely restored rivalries. It’s not just Texas and Texas A&M; it’s Texas and Arkansas. You maintain the rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma. … We added big brands – the notion of Texas playing Alabama this fall and repeating that [when they’re both in the SEC], I think that adds to the interest. … It’s good for us. I think that puts us in a healthy way for the future and could create interest in college football.
“You only have one responsibility when that opportunity presents itself. I have enormous respect for Bob Bowlsby, and you hate those personal impacts. I know this has an impact on the rest of the Big 12, but they made a quick pivot and they have the opportunity to move forward in a healthy way.”
That SEC expansion also had an impact on league member Texas A&M, which fled the Big 12 a decade ago in large part because it was tired of rival Texas’ imperious attitude. When news of the Longhorns and Sooners arriving aboard broke last July, it took the Aggies by unpleasant surprise and put Sankey into damage repair mode.
“I was with him [in SEC football media days],” says A&M athletic director Ross Bjork. “He was definitely taken aback by how this news got out. He admitted, ‘Hey look, I could have had a better communication plan with A&M, but it happened faster than I expected.’ He admitted that, and to me that’s what good leaders do. They have situations; they have responsibility. He owned many things.
Sankey is in his eighth year as SEC Commissioner after taking office on June 1, 2015.
“Do we like how it happened? Not. We talked about it. The end result was probably inevitable, anyway. The nature of college sports is changing, so we will be at the forefront of that.”
Says Sankey: “At first this created some difficulty, but I appreciate that we had a unanimous vote to extend the invites.”
(An apparent concession to A&M that is not in the way of Texas making the league: Bjork says the first football game in the resumption of the Longhorns-Aggies rivalry will be at College Station, not Austin.)
In addition to the expansion imbroglio, Bjork has effusive praise for Sankey’s leadership. “The respect he has among presidents, chancellors, ADs, he’s at his peak for commissioners,” he says. That admiration echoes throughout the league, from athletes to coaches to administrators.
“His intellect is really impressive, and his ability to think ahead and prepare for problems before they become problems is tremendous,” says Missouri President Mun Choi. “I’m so glad he’s our commissioner.”
Even in private conversations, it is impossible to find a detractor of Sankey in the SEC. That matters to the commissioner. He has vigorously discouraged league leaders from being anonymous media sources, and among his strongest dislikes are the SEC’s anonymous criticism of peer conferences.
He listed “the anonymous Power 5 AD commenting on us” and “the anonymous Power 5 conference official commenting on us” among his top five annoyances.
“What you don’t see, even now, is the return of some of the comments that were directed at us last year,” says Sankey. “I’m so proud of our campuses that they don’t feel the need to get involved in the downfall of others to lift us up.”
As for the Big Ten expansion? Without making a direct comparison, Sankey pointed out that the 16-team SEC will remain an affiliation of schools in contiguous states. And he highlighted the historic rivalries that will be revived. That’s as far as he’s willing to criticize USC and UCLA, joining a league full of strangers thousands of miles away.
“We really focus on how we make decisions and we respect how others make decisions,” says Sankey. “I recognize that the reality is that things change. I am confident that our colleagues at the Big Ten are involved in their due diligence and decision making, and they are free to do so. There I leave. Should, shouldn’t… that’s not up to me.
Much depends on Greg Sankey, however. From playoff size to NCAA form to the SEC’s giant role in the race for more revenue, he’s more involved in what’s to come than anyone else. The company is supposedly in good hands – in Sankey’s hands – unless he drops it and breaks it while he seeks more money.
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Why does the SEC dominates college football?
Geography. Most of the country’s top recruits come from the South. To see also : The NFL’s new streaming partnership with Amazon, explained. The climate is more conducive to sport, and the focus on football is greater in the far south than anywhere else in the country.
Why is the SEC popular? The SEC is by far the best college football conference in terms of producing NFL talent. This is neither hyperbole nor opinion – it is a fact. Going back a decade, the conference witnessed 512 players selected in the NFL Draft, 129 more than the ACC, which is second in that time period for most players selected.
Why is SEC so dominant in football?
A big reason the SEC has been so dominant, particularly over the last five seasons, is the mental and physical toughness that comes with being an SEC team. In particular, the belief that running with the ball and playing defense are the keys to winning trophies.
Why is the SEC so much better than other conferences?
For decades, the SEC went after and got the best coaches. The SEC sells trainers to fans like no other conference. See the article : Northwestern O-Line Coach Takes Funny Shots at Nebraska After Win. The SEC has positioned its coaches to be celebrities because players come and go every four years. But the coach stays with the program.
What is the wealthiest college football conference?
When data analytics firm Navigate released its conference revenue projections for 2022 in March, it had the Big 12 at $40.6 million, while the Big Ten was forecast at $57.2 million and the SEC at $57. To see also : Texas Dems vote similarly for Biden on climate and health care.2 million. $54.3 million. The Pac-12 was projected at $34.4 million per school, while the ACC was at $30.9 million.
How much does each college football conference earn? The conference reported a 35.7% drop in revenue from fiscal year 2019-20 to 2020-21 and distributed just $19.8 million to each school. The Big Ten dropped 11.6% but still distributed $47.8 million to each school. The Big Ten’s 2017 media rights deal produced an average of $441.7 million in TV revenue per year.
Which college football conference makes the most money?
Reaching $1 Billion a Year, Big Ten Signs University Conference TV Deal. The deal splits Big Ten sports between Fox, NBC and CBS, and is the richest annual deal for any college sports league.
What was the most profitable college football program in 2021?
Ranking of the most valuable college football programs
- Texas A&M. 2021 record: 8-4. …
- Tennessee. 2021 record: 7-6. …
- Alabama. 2021 record: 13-2. …
- Michigan. 2021 record: 12-2. …
- Notre-Dame. 2021 record: 11-2. …
- Georgia. 2021 record: 14-1. …
- Texas. 2021 record: 5-7. …
- Oklahoma. 2021 record: 11-2. 2019-20 revenue: $101.119 million.
What is the largest conference in college football?
| Member conferences and universities | ACC | Clemson |
|---|---|---|
| big ten | indian | |
| 12 big | State of Iowa | |
| Pac-12 | Arizona State | |
| SEC | arkansas |
How many employees does the SEC have?
It has been an important part of the American success story. It’s remarkable what the SEC team – more than 4,500 people in 12 offices – oversees.
Who controls the SEC? Who is the SEC accountable to? The SEC is an independent federal agency led by a five-member bipartisan commission consisting of the president and four commissioners appointed by the president and confirmed by the US Senate.
How many employees does the SEC?
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Washington, D.C., USA |
| Employees | 4,807 (2022) |
| agency executive | Gary Gensler, President |
| Web site | www.sec.gov |
How many companies are on the SEC?
SEC Description Approximately 1,150 of the 12,000 companies registered with the SEC are non-US companies.
What is the budget of the SEC?
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week released its annual congressional budget rationale. The agency is seeking a budget of $2.15 billion for fiscal year 2023, which is nearly $240 million more than expected in fiscal year 2022.
