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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA DAYS

July 16, 2018

Greg Sankey

Atlanta, Georgia

GREG SANKEY: In the middle of that video, which is shown at SEC's new coaches' orientation, and as you can imagine with all of the coaching change we've had over 200 individuals already through new coaches' orientation.

That's their introductory video. There's a moment where there's a South Carolina punter, and the lyric or the line is sometimes you're a little bit quiet, a little bit too quiet there for a while.

It is the little things because we lost a cable that came unplugged, so be careful where you walk all week.

I was watching things in Helsinki and was pleased that we have more people here than at the press conference in Helsinki right now. So we'll see if we can make some news. Like the Hoagy Carmichael/Stuart Gorrell song from the 1930's made famous by Ray Charles, I had "Georgia On My Mind" for this event for a couple years. It's really good to be in Atlanta. We welcome all of you here today.

We're excited to bring one of our signature events to Atlanta, and I know that our 14 coaches, the 42 student-athletes

who you'll meet this week are also pleased to be here and grateful for your presence.

Today's kickoff event was once known as the Skywriters Tour. In fact, we have a photo from 1966. I'm not sure any of you are in this photo. This is how Media Days began. And from 1966 until 1983, our media activity in the summer was the Skywriters Tour.

Mark Womack had been on the SEC staff for 27 years the moment this photo was taken. Since 1985, every SEC Media Day event has been in Birmingham, Alabama. And this is the first to be in Atlanta.

We started yesterday with what we called SEC Summerfest in Centennial Park. Grateful to bring some fans into that experience, the "Monday Night Football" crew, which includes now SEC Nation along Joe Tessitore, LSU alum, Booger McFarland and former Tennessee Vol Jason Witten in that broadcast booth.

Also great to be in the College Football Hall of Fame. This setting provides us with a unique opportunity to experience some memories in a venue that's focused on college football. There are 107 individuals, former student student-athletes or former coaches, associated with the SEC who are honored in this hall. And it's our hope that some of the young men you meet here today will one day return and be honored here for their achievements.

Being in Atlanta reminds us of this city's important place in the history of the Southeastern Conference. It was in Atlanta on February 27th, 1933, on West Peachtree Street at the old Biltmore Hotel where then University of Kentucky president, Frank L. McVey, brought to order the first ever meeting of the Southeastern Conference, the first annual meeting that we now know is in Destin.

The Georgia Dome provided us a home for 23 consecutive national championship games. And with our move to Mercedes-Benz Stadium last year, we experienced the second highest attended SEC championship game ever. The most highly attended SEC championship game was that first one in 1992 in Birmingham, and we've come close. We have not eclipsed that mark, but we got a new second-place finisher.

In January, we also witnessed an all SEC College Football Playoff National Championship game. Obviously the first time that in the College Football Playoff format, two teams from the same conference have competed for the national title.

It's the second time, however, since 2011, that two SEC teams have been in the national championship game. And in that game, between Alabama and Georgia, there were 38 student-athletes displaying one of the SEC graduate patches.

In fact, of those 38 young men who had already received their bachelor's degree, three at the time of kickoff had already completed their Master's degree. During the 2017-18 year, over 350 of our student-athletes wore an SEC graduate patch and then competed wearing that patch on their uniform. These achievements, in our collective history are always important to remember.

That's why last year, we honored the SEC's pioneers of integration by presenting them with a Michael L. Slive Distinguished Service Award.

On an evening in early December, we gathered just a few blocks from here where we learned that we had lost one of those pioneers, Vanderbilt's Perry Wallace, who passed away that day.

We learned of this loss as we were inviting the group onto the stage where later they were joined for a photo with the SEC's seventh commissioner, Mark Slive. In that moment, none of us would have imagined that today Mike would not be at his home in front of his television watching these remarks on the SEC Network.

Two years ago, for me personally, before the 2016 version of SEC Media Days, Mike and I visited at our satellite's Starbucks office. As we left standing outside, Mike grabbed my arm and said to me, he said, this, it's your conference now. You don't need to talk about me. You're the commissioner, and it's your conference.

I am going to violate Mike's rule this morning and talk about him for just a moment. Whether he knew it or not, that morning after coffee, he gave me the great gift of encouragement and of confidence.

In this room, many of you had your own experiences with Mark Slive. We could probably pass a microphone around, and you could share a story that would take us all of the way through Thursday.

This past Saturday was the date of the 50th wedding anniversary for Mike and Liz Slive. We miss Mike, but we know the loss is even greater for his family. We remain grateful for his contribution and grateful to Liz, to Anna, to Judd, and to Abigail for sharing Mike with us all.

Losses like this serve as reminders, reminders of friendships, reminders of moments, reminders of achievement, reminders of the tough times and the great times.

In the Southeastern Conference, we've had some heartbreaking losses in the last year, but have also realized stories of remarkable success. SEC teams captured five national championships.

Though not an SEC sponsored sport, we also congratulate Kentucky's rifle team and Vanderbilt's woman's bowling team for they captured national championships as well.

We had 11 of our teams finish runner up in national championship contests. We're not looking for second place, but still, I think we had 14 of our 21 sports finish in either first or second nationally.

Another year of an SEC women's basketball team playing in the Final Four national championship game, eight SEC men's basketball teams selected to participate in the NCAA Tournament, the most ever, and a sign of the continuing competitive progress we're making in men's basketball.

Two stats that I think are actually among the most remarkable. For the second year in a row, we had every one of our softball team, all 13, selected to the NCAA Tournament and for the first time, all 14 men's golf teams.

That's not something that's likely to happen. Yet it's happened, and it's happened with the Southeastern Conference over the last few years.

An SEC record, 57 teams earned public recognition awards from the NCAA for achieving academic progress rates in the top ten percent of their sport. That's notable because if you went back 10 to 12 years when the APR metric was first launched, nearly that same number of teams were either below or far too close to the margin of being ineligible for NCAA post-season competition. We have made great progress, as a league academically over the last decade.

Those teams earning public recognition, include LSU, who had eight teams honored, Auburn and Kentucky with six teams each, South Carolina and Vanderbilt, each with five teams. And four of our member institutions had four teams on that list.

Over a year's time, 60,000 hours of community service were contributed by our student-athletes in our local communities. 15 student-athletes in ten sports earned either national or co-national athlete of the year honors.

We know our continued success is not a given. Our competitors seek our same achievements, and the change around us is happening at a more rapid pace, it seems, than ever before.

For the SEC to extend our achievements, we will be thoughtful and strategic as we continually assess our tactics.

For example, last year, we modified how we managed parts of the football game. That reduced the total time of our games by six minutes on average. And we're pleased to see the NCAA Rules Committee taking measures to address the pace of play in football games.

We're working now to introduce what we call a TV timeout clock that will be managed by the red hat on the sideline and display the actual length of each TV timeout and show the countdown of time on a field level clock until play resumes.

We're the first to announce the conference dedicated channel with Sirius XM. SEC channel 374, which is vying personally for time with Channel 30, the U2 Experience channel, and I'm clear to say it's actually losing that competition on my car radio as good as it is.

The SEC continued its leadership position when our membership in Destin voted unanimously to expand the conference's serious misconduct rule to apply to all incoming student-athletes, establishing clear expectations for young people seeking to participate in intercollegiate athletics on an SEC campus be they incoming freshman or transfer student-athletes.

We've also been an initiator of change in the use of video review to support officiating. 2016, we created college level instant replay review in football.

This past basketball season for our conference games, we introduced an experiment around centralized replay. We think the experiment worked well and intend to do the same for the coming season.

In baseball, we expanded the number of plays subject to video review. And we offered our coaches a challenge opportunity within games. And next year, we plan to implement centralized replay for the 2019 season in baseball. And in volleyball, we'll add a third official in the arena this fall to review replays and make those determinations.

The SEC's approach to football scheduling is traditionally a subject that generates a bit of debate and fills plenty of air time and column space.

Following the addition of Texas A&M and Missouri, we shifted to what we call a 6-1-1 model. And that means, each team plays six games within its own division, one game against a permanently designated opponent from the other division, and an additional game against an opponent from the other division that rotates on an annual basis.

Following a year-long review back in 2014 of quite literally every possible scheduling option available, the 6-1-1 model was the clear preference of the SEC's member institutions. As the SEC's approach worked, let's just take a look at what's happened around our football.

We are the only conference to have at least ten teams qualify for Bowl games for four consecutive seasons, which started in 2013 and extended through 2016. And last year, we had nine Bowl eligible teams.

As a conference, we've led the nation in football attendance for 19 years. The conference's approach maintains our long-standing rivalries, both within divisions and across divisions where they exist.

We played conference games beginning typically the second week of the season, sometimes in week one. And those games extend throughout the entire season giving our fans access to SEC versus SEC competition all season long.

In 2016, as an outcome of that 2014 review, the conference mandated each team play a ninth game against an opponent from an autonomy five conference.

A team from the SEC has played in 11 of the last 12 national championship games. Five different SEC teams have accessed the national championship game. Four different SEC teams have participated in winning 9 of the past 12 national titles.

By comparison, no other conference has had more than two institutions access those national championship games during that time. And twice in the past seven years, as I mentioned earlier, we've had an all SEC match-up in the national championship game, which no other conference has done on any occasion in that period.

Our success as a league should not be attributed simply to our scheduling philosophy, but year after year, our best teams have produced the best team in the country. The facts candidly speak for themselves.

Stated succinctly what we do works at both the national championship level and at a level that provides our team's meaningful access to post-season Bowl opportunities.

Despite our success, every year we engage with our athletics directors in a thorough analysis of football issues. We look at scheduling information. We review national trends. And we analyze the work of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. The results our athletics directors review are shared with presidents and chancellors and discussed that group.

I do not presently anticipate any major change in our approach, but I do anticipate healthy and continued dialogue both now and in the future among our leadership.

Again, we have a history of being thoughtful and strategic as we decide major policy issues, and I assure you the same approach will continue.

One place where change is occurring and occurring rapidly is around the media. Probably no group needs to hear that from me any less than you. The evolving landscape includes mergers, proposed mergers, new network leaders, emerging technology, shifts in consumer behavior, all of which are helping redefine the present and the future of television.

Through the current upheaval, the SEC continues to build upon its strong media presence. For example, SEC teams played in the five most highly rated college football games last year. And as I recall across the continuum, 13 of the top 25 rated games.

The CFP Championship Game showed a year over year increase in viewership when the two SEC teams were involved. Our conference championship game continues to be the most viewed of any conference championship game. And during the 2017 season, for the ninth year in a row, the SEC on CBS package was the highest rated college football package.

1,432 days ago, if you're keeping exact totals, we began a new partnership with ESPN, what is recognized as the most successful launch of a cable network in television history. Despite being in the newest of the conference networks, awareness of the SEC Network is currently high. And thanks to our partners at ESPN, this reach has been extended.

This fall, the SEC Network will be available on all pieces, New York, metropolitan area cable TV service meaning the SEC Network is on every major cable and satellite provider in the country.

We are also on every over-the-top provider, the only conference channel to have that distribution on the new directed consumer providers. Internationally, the SEC Network is available in 130 countries.

This is an incredibly successful endeavor. And we expect to remain the leading conference network and have no interest in being similar or comparable. We want to stand unique among our peers.

Part of our success is due to the people and personalities involved on the SEC Network. We, along with Phyllis, Tammy, Darryl, Bobby, I-Man, Jim, and numerous others were pleased to see afternoons on the SEC Network will remain interesting and compelling as ESPN and Paul Finebaum recently agreed to a new contract for Paul's work with ESPN and on the SEC Network. I'm certain I left someone off that list, and they'll call and let Paul know shortly.

I'm grateful to have new the ESPN president, Jimmy Pitaro, join us in Destin for our annual meetings. Jimmy's schedule is incredibly busy and his willingness to travel and engage in meaningful dialogue with our presidents, our chancellors, and our athletic directors about his vision for ESPN. And his work in the SEC is both appreciated and important.

The SEC on CBS, the SEC Network, and ESPN's presentation of the Southeastern Conference represent important relationships for us. We know we bring great value to the media marketplace.

We look forward to innovating and to adapting with a focus on providing the best possible access to our fans, to our media agreements, and increasing the support that's provided to our universities and to our athletic programs.

The world around us is continually changing. The game of football is continuing its evolution. Later this week, you will hear from Steve Shaw on additional rule changes and points of emphasis around the game. One of the areas of change for us is the Supreme Court decision in Murphy versus the NCAA.

As we expect to see, in fact are seeing, the expanded presence of legalized sports gambling across the country. Understand that since 2011, members of the SEC staff have been in communication with and learning with those who work in legalized sports gambling.

We've also been in contact over the last year with representatives from the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and the PGA offices to monitor and learn from their efforts and to stay up-to-date on their legislative conversations.

Gambling activity around sports is not new, and that includes gambling activity around collegiate sports. What is new is the expansion of legalized sports gambling and the increased cultural acceptance of legalized sports gambling.

For us, the integrity of our games is of the utmost importance. While it may be preferred to have no expansion of gambling activity, what is needed now is for our state and federal legislative leaders to enact policies that properly support the integrity of our games and provide the necessary protections for our students and our student-athletes.

In Destin, we briefly discussed the concept of injury reporting with our football coaches and athletics directors.

It's clear that the nature of any so-called injury report around college sports will have very different dynamics than are present at the professional level.

FERPA and HIPAA requirements, academic suspensions, other team or athletics' department imposed suspensions and NCAA eligibility issues make something more like an availability report relevant for discussion. I do not believe this has to happen before the 2018 season, either on the part of this conference or the national level.

I expect, however, the change in sports gambling could be and will be likely the impetus for the creation of such reports in our future.

Identifying the proper approach should be the priority, not haste. And that will result from collaboration among the American Football Coach's Association and its representatives, the conference, the NCAA national office, learning from the professional leagues and with proper guidance from legal resources.

If this is to happen, we have one opportunity to get it right. The importance of integrity in college athletics is underscored by what has transpired in college basketball over the past 12 months. Arrests, indictments, and eventual appointment of a special commission lead by the performer United States Secretary of State resulted from an unhealthy culture and unacceptable actions by individuals.

I expect we will see in early August the NCAA Board adopt most, if not all, of the Rice Commission recommendations. Of even greater importance than enacting recommendations is for those of us associated with intercollegiate athletics, commissioners, presidents, chancellors, athletics directors, coaches, staff members, boosters and student-athletes to all conduct ourselves with a level of integrity that properly presents the ideals and values of higher education.

To that point yesterday, former LSU basketball coach, Dale Brown, sent me an e-mail. I don't know if you know, but he's prolific with his e-mails. It was a coach from John Wooden. It said this, quote, no written word, no spoken plea can teach our students what they should be, nor all of the books on the shelves. It's what the teachers are themselves,

End of quote. That's a pretty good and timely reminder regarding our own expectations for ourselves.

Now, understand this is important because I believe despite the winds of change and problematic stories that arise from time to time in the SEC and all across intercollegiate athletics, we do important work, and we do it incredibly well.

This week, you'll meet people like Ross Pierschbacher from Alabama, Josiah Coatney and Sean Rawlings from Ole Miss, and Nick Fitzgerald from Mississippi State, all of whom earned their bachelor's degrees.

Eli Wolf from Tennessee who declined other Division I scholarship offers to join his brother as a non-scholarship student-athlete on the Tennessee volunteers football team.

Arkansas's Hjalte Froholdt who is from Svendborg, Denmark marking the first time an SEC's commissioner's remarks have ever included Svendborg, Denmark in them.

Missouri's Drew Lock who is not only one of the highly rated quarterbacks in the country, but a third generation member of the Mizzou football team.

LSU's Devin White, Jr., who owns seven horses, and on Sunday, the team's day off, winds down by riding one of those horses on a regular basis.

Vanderbilt's LaDarius Wiley who spent May studying abroad in Australia and Georgia's J.R. Reed who has a sister that's a member of the Texas A&M field and track team.

We're not going to name all 42 because these are some of the young men you will meet this week who represent what is done well in college football, but doing well is not limited to football in the Southeastern Conference.

In fact, as I conclude today, I'll do so by honoring a young woman who made a profound impact during her short time as an SEC student-athlete. Honoring a group of student-athletes who supported her and honoring a young man who demonstrated leadership on the football field.

The young woman is Alex Wilcox, a member of the softball team at Mississippi State, whom we lost after her courageous battle with ovarian cancer. Every one of the SEC softball teams rallied around Alex in the No One Fights Alone campaign. I want you to understand this was not the result of something my office did or conference meeting or an administrative idea.

On their own to encourage and care for a member of the SEC family, every softball team in the conference displayed its support for Alex through videos, wearing teal uniforms, displaying Alex's name on their helmets, pregame gear on their bracelets that they wore.

We are still saddened by Alex's untimely passing. We are encouraged and humbled by the leadership shown by the young women on the softball teams, and that's why we honored every one of those teams with the SEC's Sportsmanship's Award this year.

South Carolina's Jake Bentley was also a recipient of this year's Sportsmanship Award. You may know the story, the game in Knoxville between South Carolina and Tennessee, the Gamecocks took a 15-9 lead with 1:13 left to play.

Tennessee's freshman quarterback, Jarrett Guarantano lead the Volunteers to first and goal at the 2-yard line with

9 seconds to play, but three incomplete passes ended the game with the score still 15-9.

The South Carolina celebrated. Guarantano sat dejected on the sideline. It's then that Jake noticed him, dropped down and offered him words of encouragement. A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words.

Thank you to Alex for being part of the SEC. Thank you to the softball teams of this great conference for the support and the encouragement you showed to her. And thank you, Jake, for your friendship, your encouragement and your leadership.

Now, as is our tradition, we'll have some time for questions and as Tom petty sang, "The Wait is the Hardest Part." Kevin, back to you.

Q. Could you talk a little more about the SEC new coaches orientation and what goes on there?
GREG SANKEY: For 26 years now, every new coach hired into the SEC is invited to spend a day in the SEC office. It opens with that video, a message from me. It has evolved over time. It used to be almost 15-minute increments going through an SEC manual.

So, I'll start talking about vision and expectations, review some of our challenges in the past, and really talk about the opportunities that they have.

We brought in a representative from Twitter to educate our coaches on effective use of social media. We brought in some consultants growing leaders from Atlanta to talk about strategies for communication with young people today. You've heard it's not the same as it may have been

10 or 20 years ago, so we want people to think intentionally about those aspects of their work.

We talked through our policies. So if somebody may have coached for years and years, decades, literally, we will walk through what our policies are, how they might vary, people to know. We talk about television agreements and where they run into expectation.

Our hope is when they begin, there have at least some level of familiarity and information they won't hear otherwise. In fact I don't think, I know, we are the only conference that invests in these types of resources in every new coach.

What is interesting is I led that effort for 13 years. We one time hit 70 in a session. There's a session in May, July and October.

The first session we had in May, we had over 120 people.

This session last week, we have 80, and we have one more to go. So we are setting new records for new people. And it is not just coaches. It may be staff around our sports programs as well who come join us for a day in Birmingham.

Q. Greg, how exactly is SEC going to get us minor gambling? And is that something each school also will do?
How will you all set that up?

GREG SANKEY: It's not as if there's a plan. You can subscribed to a service.

Part of our education in 2011 is should we subscribe and find out what's happening around gambling. Part of the positive step with legalized gambling is there's a lot more sunshine on what is happening.

And one of the lessons is those involved in legalized gambling are the best at knowing what's happened. I think some of the state laws include expectations for communication around transparency. If there are oddities, I think that's one much those elements that we would encourage.

I think there are two parts really to the question; monitoring what's happening at a state and national level from a policy standpoint. That's the communication with other leagues both at the college and professional level and then the discussion of should we be in the habit of subscribing to a service that analyzes our games. Is there strange things that might happen around the line? We've not done that yet, but certainly a topic of conversation.

Q. With the once extreme popularity of the NFL and how it's slid somewhat as of last year, how do you -- if so, and how do you prevent the bleeding over into college football and its popularity?
GREG SANKEY: If I understand the question, it's about a commentary about the NFL and NFL still seems popular. They've obviously had some issues arise.

I separate those because I've been clear, I think even here last year, I want to make sure as we think about our game, we think about college football.

I think there are likely lessons to be learned about how we manage the game, but our game and its relationships within our states and our alumni and universities is a very different relationship between what exists between fans of the NFL by comparison. I think that we want to make sure those affiliations with our universities are strong.

You see increased applications, increased enrollments, increased alumni numbers. Those are all core affiliations. Part of the success, expectation, innovation that I talked about with media partners and the attentiveness to allowing our fans to have access, all of that is part of a strategy to make sure we have those type of healthy relationships and the type of connection that keeps us strong and vital in the future.

Q. Is there an abridged version of how this event wound up here this year? And what is the SEC's stance on future sites of media days? Is it Hoover next year and then what's beyond that?
GREG SANKEY: I'll do my best with an abridged version.

We thought very intentionally about moving Media Days here last summer with the Mercedes-Benz Stadium opening. And the Falcons were great in conversation, thought, wow, what a neat way to have the first college football event be SEC Media Days in or around Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Obviously construction made that a possibility that wasn't real for us, so we had to make a change relatively early on, not really a change, but remain in Hoover. But it started a set of thoughts and preparations that led us here today. And then, believe it or not, there's a lot of work with changing something you've done in the same place for well over a decade to relocating to a different city in a different facility, but when I stood here for a little bit of practice last night, we have a goal post at the end. We're playing literally on a turf. There's just a feel around football that's special and unique.

We're in Hoover next year. And I've been clear, in my mind is some portability. I can see already there are fans who likely have not seen this event or been a part of this event who are here today. And we can do that in different places, just like we had a men's basketball tournament in

St. Louis in March this year.

Q. Greg, I know you hear from a lot of people with various agendas about the scheduling.
Understanding that you are not likely to go to a nine game schedule any time soon, I think one of the stakeholders in this that does not usually have their opinion greeted with much appreciation is the fans. And because of your divisional structure in the league, you have fan bases that go 12 years without seeing schools in the other division in those stadiums.

What is the benefit of a divisional structure given that and also the fact that the schedules will become frankly quite unbalanced?

GREG SANKEY: Well, there's some opinion in there that we can probably debate for a lot of time.

Let me just go back to the core question, which is our attention to our fans' interests.

That's actually part of that annual conversation. That is an element. And I think Pat Dooley wrote an article about visiting fans traveling or not traveling. And one of the questions people have asked, is it a time to refresh matchups.

We have not arrived at that destination, but I want to be very clear we're not inattentive to fans' conversations.

On the other side, we have led the attendance nationally for the last 19 years and still sell in the high

90 percentile of all of our available tickets. I think the fans also speak in a positive way about what is happening.

I don't know that I'll go much further into metrics and discussion. Today I've seen observations that we should be the nine game schedule. One of those conversations that we've had with the College Football Playoff selection committee chair is about the conference schedule piece. And I want to try to be intentional.

What they've said is, we look at the entire schedule. That's the issue that our schools have to be and our teams have to be mindful of is the entirety of their schedule needs to be robust.

Now, we know from the figures that I quoted that the level of play in this league is uniquely robust, not simply in our opinion, but what has been reflected over time. That's a factor in this conversation.

I think, go back to my comments, the divisional structure has supported a number of really healthy, really important rivalries, or sectional games that have great meaning. And when you start developing different formats, remember, I said back in 2014, we work through a lot.

You end up interrupting some things that right now is not a priority for us. We want to maintain those types of scheduling rivalries.

Could that change? That's why we have conversations every year. But those rivalries are really healthy and I think really unique, particularly in the number of those that exist in this conference.

Q. Greg, it's assumed that the revenue distribution from the conference, that money will go back into football at each member school, and maybe to a lesser extent, other teams in athletics. What's the conference's stance on how that money is used at each school? And what are your thoughts on that distribution going book into the university apart from athletics if obviously the football program is the one that earned it?
GREG SANKEY: I'm going to kindly disagree with the observation embedded in the question, which is I think in the statement, I may be paraphrasing, that the bulk of the distribution from the conference goes back into football.

I can go through anecdotally conversations where that's not accurate. Let's start with what happens at the university level. We don't mandate how that revenue flows once it leaves our office, how it is distributed on campus.

We have science buildings I know at Arkansas and Kentucky that have been funded through intercollegiate athletics. We have different revenue flows for student scholarships on some of our campuses. I had those conversations at Florida, South Carolina, and LSU.

We have other contributions from our athletics programs back to campuses. I don't have those facts and figures in front of me, Adam, but that's factual.

It is also very clear that the conference revenue distribution supports the breadth of what we do. I didn't go into all of our achievements this year.

But the fact that across 21 sports, we're playing at the national championship level on a consistent basis is an indication of the wisdom with how our institutions have used the revenue and resources to support the breadth of programs in their athletics department and, as I said, very clearly what happens on the university campuses as well.

And I'll go back from a revenue standpoint and offer that I think part of what has happened around this league, our media agreements, why those are important, the SEC Network, is that we have become an incredibly attractive place for students.

We have student volunteers that I'll visit with from California, Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio. They come from all over the country to be educated on our campuses. A big piece of that is -- the most significant piece is education, but we present ourselves incredibly well and support ourselves incredibly well through intercollegiate athletics.

I'll be around. We got a schedule to keep, so I'm not running away, but I'll be around.

If you talk to our staff, probably Herb or Katherine or want to have a conversation, we'll certainly work to make that happen. Thanks for being here. Thanks for finding your way to the new destination, and I hope the next few days are productive for each of you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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