Greg Sankey stood up at SEC Media Days in Tampa this week and said an SEC breakaway from the NCAA is real. Then, days later, turned right around and told a different reporter it’s not actually a priority. Make up your damn mind, Greg.
Because if it’s actually on the table, I’ve got two words for him. Let them leave… who cares.
Is the NCAA broken? Yeah, I’ll agree with that. It’s also completely biased as hell, and everybody’s too scared to say that part out loud, so I will.
And yeah, some of the frustration is real too. NIL’s a mess nobody planned for, the lawsuits won’t stop, revenue sharing’s a joke, and everybody’s sitting around waiting on Congress to fix a law Congress has shown zero interest in fixing. Fine. Fair.
But Sankey basically admitted the whole threat doesn’t even work. He told CBS Sports that if the SEC actually walked away, they’d just end up back in front of Congress anyway, breakaway or not. Which means leaving doesn’t even fix what he’s mad about. It’s not a plan. It’s a mood.
The SEC Breakaway From The NCAA Lasted About Four Days
Somebody asked Sankey point blank about it in Tampa.
“That’s just honest communication.”
Sure it is. Kirby Smart’s been saying basically the same thing since May, if the sport can’t agree on rules everybody actually follows, the SEC should just go run its own show, and he’s not afraid to do it. That’s the posture all offseason, frustrated and ready to walk any minute now.
Except when CBS Sports actually pressed him on it, Sankey folded completely, said it’s not a priority, said the whole breakaway headline wasn’t even what he meant. So it’s real enough to say out loud at a podium in Tampa, but it can’t survive one follow up question from a guy with a notepad. That’s not honest communication. That’s talking out of both sides of your mouth and hoping nobody’s taking notes.
ESPN Doesn’t Have A Dime In The Big Ten, And That’s The Whole Point
ESPN doesn’t have a dime in the Big Ten’s television deal. Not one. Fox, CBS, NBC and Peacock pay that conference, and ESPN had the chance, they turned down a 7-year, $380 million offer back in 2022 and let the Big Ten walk to three other networks instead. Fox still gets first pick of every game in that deal every single year. ESPN just isn’t in the room anymore.
But ESPN’s got a 10-year exclusive on every single SEC football and basketball game, through 2034, and on top of that they own the entire College Football Playoff outright, every round, every selection show, through 2032, all $7.8 billion of it.
Zero Big Ten money. All the SEC money.
So when that committee sits down every single week to argue who’s in and who’s out, I don’t care that it’s technically a different room full of people than the ESPN suits upstairs. You really think it’s in their best interest to piss off the mouse?
Indiana Just Won The Whole Thing Without The SEC In The Building
INDIANA won the national championship. 16 and 0. A program that had just become the first team in major college football history to hit 700 losses, and not one SEC team was anywhere near that trophy.
That’s 3 straight national titles for the Big Ten now.
And when it came time to vote on the next playoff format, the Big Ten got the ACC and the Big 12 to fall in line behind their 24-team plan and left the SEC standing there by itself, a conference that used to have everybody falling in line behind THEM.
Georgia’s own president, Jere Morehead, stood up this spring and said maybe Georgia beating Alabama in the SEC Championship should’ve just counted as the national title, save everybody the trouble. Georgia won that game 28-7.
Then lost the CFP quarterfinal to Ole Miss, another SEC team. People laughed him out of the room for that suggestion back in May, and then his own team went and proved them right.
So the game that was apparently good enough to skip the whole national championship for wasn’t even good enough to get his own team out of the second round.
Let Them Go
So let the SEC play all their games against themselves, have their own championship… and never have to explain to anybody again why a network that only pays them keeps handing them the benefit of the doubt.
Real competition, true competition with no bias will be left when they’re gone.
