NASHVILLE – SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey touched on a number of subjects Monday to kickoff SEC Media Days.

Among the subjects: the future of the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta, the new storming the field policy, and the upcoming rule changes coming to college football this year.

To see what all Sankey had to say:

I heard earlier you talked about extending the agreement in Atlanta, but with the new stadium, dome stadium going up here in four years, are there any thoughts of bringing the championship or an annual game on the football field to Nashville outside of the bowl game?

Sankey: We are going to focus our football game on what is really the envy of the college football championship world, and that's what we do in Atlanta. So that's where our focus, is for that particular championship. We obviously have what is and will be a longstanding relationship with Bridgestone Arena in basketball. One of my favorite books is titled The Art of Possibility, and what Nashville is doing opens up the art of possibility here, around football opportunities, basketball opportunities on a national scale. Those are very much on my mind. In fact, I've communicated that locally on repeated occasions.

Just curious. With the rule changes coming in college football, particularly the clock no longer stopping after first down, what's been the feedback from coaches, and how different do you think the game will look and feel?

Sankey: There was research done on kind of the look and the feel, so there will be some adjustments as things move along rapidly. The reality in the game of college football is you have a variety of offensive approaches. In some games, I don't think you'll even notice it, because things happen so rapidly now. I think people need to study. When I talked about spending time with John McDaid tomorrow in this room, that's about learning and making sure one understands how the new rules will operate.

Part of the learning experience is, you do reduce the number of plays in a game. It is an incremental step, though, to keep the game moving along at an interesting pace. I'll use that phrase. That's my invention, not the rules committee. We're going to have to be mindful of the outcomes and mindful that perhaps there are other adjustments that can be made.

With all the major changes in college athletics in recent memory, with regard to decision-making, where is that balance between ensuring stability while entertaining future growth, and what are the pains for that progress?

Sankey: Well, we see the pain of progress right outside the Hyatt as the road is being deconstructed so it can be rebuilt. That's a pretty good metaphor for some of the things that are happening. And whether it's concerns about state laws, understanding the realities of new opportunities, or trying to really dig in to see what's happening, that's pain and that's progress. I spoke of the need for collaboration in the previous question about laws that have emanated from our states that do involve universities. We're going to have to think differently about how we make decisions. Just to combine both questions, one of the unique aspects of the conference is people want to be a part of this conference. We gather together, our athletics directors discuss and debate, our presidents and chancellors make decisions and our rules, and I'm one who thinks we should be able to administer our own rules based on how those are decided.

In May you guys said you were hoping to have a field-storming policy before the season started. I was wondering if you have any update on that or if anything's been formalized yet?

Sankey: We did. In fact, we adopted updated policies around fines, so fines were increased. The revenue flows directly to the visiting institution. We also set some standards, and you'll just forgive for me not reciting them by memory, but Pat at our office can get to you; expectations for communication on campuses for policies around protecting the visiting team when those circumstances arise.

For the uniform standard that everybody is seeking for NIL, are there specific elements to that? I assume a salary cap is unconstitutional. Would you make athletes remain on campus for a certain period of time? What would be some of the elements to that?

Sankey: Well, I'm not going to go into the minutiae of legislative strategies. One of these efforts is--I'll give you an example. The NCAA, Charlie Baker communicated four points. One is some level of registration of agents around this business. The second is a level of transparency in communication. A third is financial support. Those seem to deal with some of the issues. How you define what actual name, image, and likeness is? Part of the nouns and verbs will have to be finalized, and we've provided drafts over time. So sure, there's language to describe the activity. There has to be agreement on the language to describe the activity.

Did the non-game schedule get tabled because schools realized that there wasn't going to be any more additional TV revenue forthcoming?

Sankey: No, there were a lot of issues. When you think about what we're going to see next year, we have expansion, we add two historically prominent football programs in Oklahoma and Texas. And not only prominent but successful. We have the College Football Playoff changes, and lingering questions about what that may or may not mean. Discussions about non-conference scheduling. When I was asked in Destin about the timing for the '25 decision, we could go out to Destin next year. The earlier we do that, the less pain we cause for the discontinuation of non-conference games. One of the bigger elements was the non-conference game issue.

Now, part of the motivation, I think, going forward is I really think our eight-game schedule is pretty remarkable. Like when we were going through the final filtering you'd say, wow, schedule A is tough, and then you'd be at schedule G and you're like, that school has got a tough schedule and all the way through. There are 16 really challenging schedules. But there are some important, we'll call them rivalry games, and we're going to have to have a decision about do we play those every year or do we play some of them every other year? The eight-game format we can protect one on an annual basis and the other seven rotate. In the nine-game format, we know we can protect up to three, rotate the other six, and achieve both that fairness and that balance issue.

You mentioned that people want to be a part of this conference. It feels like the musical chairs with realignment are still kind of swirling. Is there still the potential for growth in this conference, or are ties creating super conferences on the landscape?

Sankey: I'll go back to my standard observations: I think we are a super conference. That's why it took a part of your life that you'll never get back to go through what we achieved last year. Not that you didn't know any and all of that information. My reference to people wanting to be a part of it really reflects back on the outreach from Oklahoma and Texas. That was a question I received yesterday. I've been careful. When I was here in Atlanta last year, I was clear that we're focused on our growth to 16. I've watched others' messages about we're not done yet. I referenced this: we're going to go to this particular region. I just don't think that's healthy. People can criticize me to say, wow, you really sprung it on people in '21, which we did, and maybe there's no clean and perfect way to deal with conference membership. It's not been a topic in the Southeastern Conference other than providing updates, so we're very attentive to what's happening around us, whether those are from all of your fine investigative writing or maybe opinions, and then focusing on our growth to 16, because it's an enormous task. So that's my view.

Do I think it's done? People will say, well, I get to decide that. Right now it appears others are going to decide that before we have to make any decisions. My view is we know who we are. We're comfortable as a league. We're focused on our growth to 16. We've restored rivalries. We're geographically contiguous with the right kind of philosophical alignment, and we can stay at that level of super conference. When you go bigger, there is a whole other set of factors that have to be considered, and I'm not sure I've seen those teased out other than in my mind late at night.

NOTE:

Next year’s SEC Media Days will take place in Dallas and be held at the Omni Hotel. Incidentally, the dates fall on the same week the Texas Rangers are hosting the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.