The SEC spring meetings get underway this week in Destin, Florida. This means there should be some interesting quotes filtering out as the conference superpower discusses the potential future of college football and the conference’s plans to move forward. There will be plenty to discuss.
As previously mentioned, autonomy is expected to be the big topic of conversation. Later this summer the proposed reform measure allowing for autonomy among the power conferences -- the ACC (including Notre Dame), Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC -- will be put to a vote requiring two-thirds in favor of the proposal from the 65 member institutions within those conferences. With Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby already saying his conference is discussing what to do with the extra powers, expect the SEC to be focusing on much of the same in Destin. With the SEC having more than enough to provide student-athletes more in terms of scholarship value and amenities, what to do with the extra allowances by the NCAA will be quite the talking point.
“Our presidents and chancellors have unanimously supported this effort to create autonomy in these areas that are related to student-athletes, so I anticipate that we will continue to support it,” SEC commissionerMike Slivetold theAssociated Press, according toThe Tennessean. “And I do anticipate that we will also want to see that the proposed model is modified so that that autonomy really means autonomy, that the five conferences can determine how their own legislative process will work.”
The SEC will also be likely to discuss the plans for the launch of the SEC Network, which will debut later this summer. Getting the network in as many homes is the key of course and there are battles to be had with cable companies in the SEC’s footprint. The Big Ten Network has been a solid model to base a conference network operation off of, but the SEC would be wise to look at the ups and downs the Big Ten and Pac-12 have experienced since launching conference-branded networks and learn from any mistakes those conferences have made before launching the brand new SEC Network.