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Greg Sankey downplays idea of SEC moving to ACC-style revenue sharing model
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Greg Sankey made some interesting comments on the topic of unequal revenue sharing this week.
The SEC commissioner was asked about the possibility of such a model in the wake of the ACC’s settled lawsuit with Florida State and Clemson. The ACC will be moving forward with an unequal revenue distribution plan that tilts toward programs who generate higher television audiences.
Sankey more-or-less dismissed the idea in a recent Q&A with the Post and Courier’s Scott Hamilton, warning that similar plans haven’t worked out well for other conferences in the past:
There’s a history of unequal revenue sharing, and those conferences, it just hasn’t worked well for a long-term situation. In fact, the conferences that have chosen to do so have generally, either they don’t exist at a high level, or they’ve gone a different direction.
I’m sure that what others have done will introduce the conversation. I would hope we’re careful and responsible in how we do that. They made the decision for their purposes. That doesn’t necessarily mean that fits our purposes or our values.
Time will tell if the ACC’s arrangement will also end poorly for the schools involved. But in the mean time, it’s possible some of the SEC’s most-watched teams like Alabama or Texas could begin to wonder why they aren’t getting a bigger piece of the revenue pie.
The SEC recently announced revenue distributions for the 2023-24 fiscal year. Full members received $52.5 million in the recent payout, although that number is expected to increase in future years due to the league’s media rights agreement with ESPN that began in 2024.
The SEC is scheduled to hold its annual spring meetings in April.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
