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SEC to release injury reports beginning in 2024 football season
By Andrew Olson
Published:
SEC teams will be providing availability reports in multiple sports, the conference announced Thursday.
The conference will provide public availability reports for football, baseball and men’s and women’s basketball. The reports are set to begin with the 2024 SEC football season.
The 16 football teams will be required to submit availability reports 3 days prior to each conference game (beginning on Wednesday in advance of a Saturday football game) with daily updates leading to a final report 90 minutes prior to game time. For basketball and baseball, teams will send reports the night before with updates on game day.
Athletes are to be designated as “available,” “probable,” “questionable,” “doubtful,” or “out” for their next game on the report. On game day, athletes will be labeled either “available,” “game time decision,” or “out.”
With increasing access to legal sports betting apps in the United States, there have been pushes for mandatory injury reports in college sports. The Big Ten was the first conference to introduce official college football injury reports, which began in the 2023 season. B1G gameday reports listed a team’s injured players designated as “questionable” or “out.”
“This availability reporting policy is intended to reduce pressure from outside entities seeking participation information and represents a commitment of our 16 institutions to provide enhanced transparency to support efforts to protect our student-athletes and the integrity of competition,” Commissioner Greg Sankey said in an SEC release.
SEC football programs can be fined by the conference $25,000 for a first offense and up to $100,000 for a third offense and beyond if they fail to provide accurate and timely reports. The fines range from $15,000-25,000 in the other sports.
Effective with the 2024-25 athletics year, @SEC to provide public availability reports for football, basketball, and baseball: https://t.co/tLEOxQ8net
Reporting Requirements
• SEC school personnel must submit availability reports three days before each football game, with… pic.twitter.com/R5pU4lnvGA— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) August 29, 2024
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
