SEC announces contract extension for Commissioner Greg Sankey

The Southeastern Conference is the best league in the country. Almost without any room for debate, the SEC is the best conference in college football and college baseball and is one of the top-3 leagues most years in college basketball. The dominance that began under the previous commissioner Mike Slive has only continued since Greg Sankey has taken over.

In football, the SEC has fielded 19 National Championship participants in the last 17 years of college football, including at least one in 16 of the last 17 seasons. An SEC team has won the title in 13 of the last 17 seasons.

In baseball, SEC squads have won 9 of the last 14 College World Series, and 17 of the 28 participants during that same stretch have been from the SEC.

In men’s basketball, the league is not quite as dominant. However, the SEC has still claimed the National Championship team 3 times since 2006, only behind the ACC and Big East during that same stretch.

In the women’s game, the SEC owns the last two National Championships and has four of next year’s preseason top-12, more than any other conference.

Keeping the SEC at the top of the college athletics world is something that requires a lot of work both from the conference’s member institutions and from the conference office. Commissioner Greg Sankey has been the conference’s leader since the spring of 2015.

Sankey, now 58, will continue in his role for a little while longer. On Thursday, the SEC announced that the league’s school presidents and chancellors had approved a contract extension for Sankey that will run through at least 2028.

Sankey has worked in the SEC office since 2002, serving as the Associate Commissioner of Governance and Executive Associate Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer prior to being chosen as Chancellor 8 years ago as the replacement to Mike Slive.

Some of Sankey’s biggest accomplishments during his tenure leading the SEC include leading the conference through the Covid-19 pandemic (the SEC’s solution was the best solution of any college football league), facilitating the addition of Texas and Oklahoma to the league for 2024, and putting the conference in position for a huge television rights payday in the near future.

Sankey was also a loud voice in favor of moving the College Football Playoff from a 4-team event to a 12-team event, something that most college football fans agree will result in a heavy SEC flavor in most years’ Playoff fields.

The SEC’s long-lasting chokehold of college sports dominance is unprecedented. The bad news for the rest of the country, though, is that Greg Sankey and the SEC do not appear to be slowing down.