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Associated Press
6 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
SEC amps up fines to $500,000 for rushing field, storming court
MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The Southeastern Conference is ratcheting up penalties on schools whose fans storm the field or rush the court, doing away with an escalating fine system and now charging $500,000 per incident. 'The motivation was 'field rushing is field rushing, the first time or the 18th time,'' commissioner Greg Sankey said Thursday in announcing the decision. 'The random nature of, if you're the one getting rushed, it doesn't feel good. It might be the first time (it happened) there, but it might be your sixth time in a row, literally.' The conference also has the authority to wave the fine if the visiting team and officials are allowed to get to the locker room before fans descend. The new policy replaces an old one that called for an escalating fine structure that started with $100,000 for the first offense, raised to $250,000 for the second then hit $500,000 for the third and subsequent incidents. The SEC first instituted a fine structure for field storming in 2004, but it didn't stop the problem. In 2022, Tennessee fans stormed the field after ending a 15-game losing streak to Alabama. But things became congested and some of the Crimson Tide players were trapped; a video surfaced of a Tide player thrusting his arm toward a woman's head as he tried to get off the field. Last year, Vanderbilt beat Alabama at home, triggering fans to rush the field, tear down the goalposts and parade them to the Cumberland River. The Commodores were fined $100,000 and, per SEC policy, that money went to Alabama, which also received $100,000 for an incident after a loss at Tennessee last season. Vanderbilt got fined twice more last basketball season, the last of which cost $500,000. 'We try to set some expectations to the fan base of 'We'll welcome your celebration, but let's let the team from the visiting institution and the officials depart,'' Sankey said. ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college football: and
Associated Press
6 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
College sports lurches forward, hoping to find a level playing field with fewer lawsuits
MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. (AP) — On the one hand, what this new version of cash-infused college sports needs are rules that everybody follows. On the other, they need to be able to enforce those rules without getting sued into oblivion. Enter the College Sports Commission, a newly created operation that will be in charge of counting the money, deciding what a 'fair market' deal for players looks like and, if things go well, helping everyone in the system avoid trips to court whenever a decision comes down that someone doesn't like. With name, image, likeness payments taking over in college, this group will essentially become what the NCAA committee on infractions used to be – the college sports police, only with the promise of being faster, maybe fairer and maybe more transparent. In a signal of what the CSC's most serious mission might be, the schools from the four biggest conferences are being asked to sign a document pledging not to rely on state laws – some of which are more permissive of payments to players -- to work around the rules the commission is making. 'We need to get out of this situation where something happens, and we run to our attorney general and file suit,' said Trev Alberts of Texas A&M, one of 10 athletic directors who are part of another group, the Settlement Implementation Committee, that is helping oversee the transition. 'That chaos isn't sustainable. You're looking for a durable system that actually has some stability and ultimate fairness.' Number crunching to figure out what's fair In this new landsacpe, two different companies will be in charge of two kinds of number crunching. The first, and presumably more straightforward, is data being compiled by LBi Software, which will track how much schools are spending on every athlete, up to the $20.5 million cap each is allowed to distribute in the first year of the new arrangement expected to begin July 1. This sounds easy but comes with the assumption that universities – which, for decades, have sought to eke out every edge they can, rulebook or no – will provide accurate data. 'Over history, boosters have looked for ways to give their schools an advantage,' said Gabe Feldman, a sports law professor at Tulane. 'I think that will continue even with the settlement. It's anyone's guess as to how that manifests, and what the new competitive landscape looks like.' Adding some level of transparency to the process, along with the CSC's ability to deliver sanctions if it identifies cheaters, will be key to the new venture's success. 'There's legal risk that prohibits you from doing that,' Alberts said. 'But we want to start as transparent as we can be, because we think it engenders trust.' Good intentions aside, Alberts concedes, 'I don't think it's illogical to think that, at first, it's probably going to be a little wonky.' How much should an endorsement deal be worth? Some of the wonkiest bookkeeping figures to come from the second category of number crunching, and that involves third-party NIL deals. The CSC hired Deloitte to run a so-called clearinghouse called 'NIL Go,' which will be in charge of evaluating third-party deals worth $600 or more. Because these deals aren't allowed to pay players simply for playing – that's still technically forbidden in college sports -- but instead for some service they provide (an endorsement, a social media shoutout and so forth), every deal needs to be evaluated to show it is worth a fair price for what the player is doing. In a sobering revelation, Deloitte shared with sports leaders earlier this month that around 70% of third-party deals given to players since NIL became allowable in 2021 would have been denied by the new clearinghouse. All these valuations, of course, are subject to interpretation. It's much easier to set the price of a stock, or a bicycle, than the value of an athlete's endorsement deal. This is where things figure to get dicey. Though the committee has an appeals process, then an arbitration process, ultimately, some of these cases are destined to be challenged in court. 'You're just waiting to see, what is a 'valid business purpose' (for an NIL deal), and what are the guidelines around that?' said Rob Lang, a business litigation partner at Thompson Coburn who deals with sports cases. 'You can see all the lawyer fights coming out of that.' Avoiding court, coordinating state laws are new priorities In fact, elements of all this are ripe to be challenged in court, which might explain why the power conferences drafted the document pledging fealty to the new rules in the first place. For instance, Feldman called a law recently enacted in Tennessee viewed by many as the most athlete-friendly statute in the country 'the next step in the evolution' of state efforts to bar the NCAA from limiting NIL compensation for athletes with an eye on winning battles for recruits and retaining roster talent. 'What we've seen over the last few years is states trying to one-up each other to make their institutions more attractive places for people to go,' he said. 'This is the next iteration of that. It may set up a showdown between the schools, the NCAA and the states.' Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, said a league spanning 12 states cannot operate well if all those states have different rules about how and when it is legal to pay players. The SEC has been drafting legislation for states to pass to unify the rules across the conference. Ultimately, Sankey and a lot of other people would love to see a national law passed by Congress that does that for all states and all conferences. That will take months, if not years, which is why the new committee drafted the document for the schools to sign. 'We are all defendant schools and conferences and you inherently agree to this,' Alberts said of the document. 'I sat in the room with all of our football coaches, 'Do you want to be governed?' The answer is 'yes.'' ___ AP college sports:
Associated Press
28-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
SEC's spring meetings: The future of college sports is in the balance at Florida resort
MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Nothing less than the future of college sports is being hashed this week out in conference rooms spread throughout a sprawling seaside resort in Florida. These are the Southeastern Conference's annual spring meetings — a gathering of school presidents, athletic directors and coaches. It might be argued that the 2025 affair carries more weight than it ever has. Among the topics are the future of the College Football Playoff , the SEC's own schedule, the transfer portal and the NCAA itself. All are influenced by the fate of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit settlement that hovers over almost every corner of college athletics. As a reminder of what's at stake, a handful of football coaches detailed the uncertainties they faced with the start of practice closing in, one of which is still not knowing how many players they'll be able to suit up for the upcoming season. 'It's challenging when you're trying to figure out what you can do for football camp on July 30th, when we really don't have much of a resolution of what that's going to look like,' Texas A&M coach Mike Elko said. Some of the topics being discussed this week and the SEC's role in sorting them out: College Football Playoff The SEC and Big Ten will decide whether to expand the CFP from 12 to 14 or 16 teams, and will ultimately have the final say on how many automatic bids they and other conferences will receive. Among the proposals is one in which those two conferences would receive four automatic bid, and another that allots one automatic bid to five conferences and 11 at-large slots. 'The best system with 16 should be the 16 best,' said Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, a critic of the system last year when his team was left out of the first 12-team field. 'I don't know exactly how that's figured out' The Big 12 and Atlantic Coast conferences, which are the other two members of the Power Four, will be able to offer their input — but that's all it is — along with the rest of the smaller conferences who are involved in the CFP structure. Asked about the relationship with his fellow commissioners, the SEC's Greg Sankey relayed a recent conversation he had with one of his predecessors, Roy Kramer, who had his share of contentious arguments with leaders of other conferences. 'He said, 'We'd walk out of some of those rooms, and we weren't going to talk to each other for a year. We hated each other, but we always figured a way out,'' Sankey said. 'I take great comfort in that. And I take the responsibility to figure that out.' At stake is not only what the six seasons starting in 2026 will look like, but — if the SEC and Big Ten create an unrepairable rift with the other Power Four leagues — what college football might become once ESPN's $7.8 billion contract to televise the games ends after the 2031 season. The SEC's decision on whether to add a ninth league game and a possible shift from a conference title game to a series of 'play-in' games for newly created automatic qualifying spots are also related to the CFP's next format. The transfer portal If only there weren't that little problem of the 'student' in 'student-athlete,' some of the decisions about the transfer portal would be so much simpler. Because schools try to sync the timing of the window when players can leave one school for another with the academic calendar , football finds itself having to choose between a window that opens during the playoff — around the time the spring semester kicks off — or one that opens in the spring and predates the fall semester. The playoff option might be more convenient for some coaches, who could build their roster and do offseason workouts with those players from January through the spring. But that could lead to a repeat of some of the awkward moves from last season , with players on teams contending for a title leaving for better offers. 'It's really hard to be playing in a championship setting and have to be dealing with that,' Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. 'When I brought that up as a complaint or a problem, it was told to me, 'There's no crying from a yacht.'' Ultimately, members of the American Football Coaches Association agreed that January is the way to go. The NCAA will ultimately make this decision, likely with heavy input from the new entity being formed by the Power Four conferences that will run key aspects of college sports. The NCAA's future Most people at these meetings agree that the SEC isn't looking to break away from the NCAA completely. Then again, Sankey said, 'I've shared with the decision-making working group (at the NCAA) that I have people in my room asking, 'Why are we still in the NCAA?'' This has lent urgency to the proposals being considered for even more autonomy for the Power Four, who are looking to streamline decision-making and put the most important topics — finances, litigation and infractions not related to the settlement — in their hands. The current proposal for a slimmed-down board of directors would give the four biggest conferences enough voting power to total 65% of the vote even if the other nine board members all disagreed. It does not give the Power Four enough voting power to pass a measure if one of the four dissents. That might not be enough. 'I think 68% is a number that's been on our mind, because you can't just have someone walk away at that level among four and everything stops,' Sankey said of a formula that would give three of four conferences the voting power to pass legislation. 'We need to talk through those things in depth.' ___ AP college sports:
Washington Post
27-05-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
SEC commissioner: 'More traction' on 16-team playoff than he anticipated
MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — The commissioner of the Southeastern Conference is hearing increased interest from his league's leaders about a previously little-discussed idea of expanding the College Football Playoff from 12 to 16 teams. 'Sixteen has had more traction in my league than I would've anticipated,' Greg Sankey said Monday at the kickoff of the league's annual meetings.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
SEC commissioner: 'More traction' on 16-team playoff than he anticipated
MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The commissioner of the Southeastern Conference is hearing increased interest from his league's leaders about a previously little-discussed idea of expanding the College Football Playoff from 12 to 16 teams. 'Sixteen has had more traction in my league than I would've anticipated,' Greg Sankey said Monday at the kickoff of the league's annual meetings. Advertisement A move to 14 teams had been widely viewed as the next expansion, but Sankey said "16 has become more central in the conversation. We're interested, not committed, but the interest level has gone higher.' The future of the playoff will be among the topics discussed among school presidents, athletic directors and coaches in what might be the most consequential of the many conference meetings taking place this spring. Last week, all 10 conferences and Notre Dame provided the unanimous agreement needed to move to a straight seeding model for next year's playoff, which will remain a 12-team affair. It's a move Sankey started pushing for shortly after last season's bracket elevated Arizona State and Boise State — each ranked ninth or lower by the playoff selection committee — into the top four, where they received first-round byes. Advertisement The next major shakeup will comes for the 2026 season, where the SEC and Big Ten will play the biggest decision-making role in what comes for the six-year, $7.8 billion ESPN contract that covers the playoff through 2031. The commissioner said he is neither committed to the 16-team idea, nor to the oft-floated idea of providing up to four automatic bids to both the SEC and Big Ten in whatever format comes next. A shift to more automatic bids for the SEC could lead the league to scrap its conference title game — a concept hatched 33 years ago by former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer — in favor of some slate of 'play-in' games for those automatic spots. It could be a money maker. Ultimately, all schools desperately need to increase revenue to cover the $20.5 million in direct name, image, likeness payments, along with added expenses for financial aid — all of which come into play if a federal judge approves settlement terms of a long-running lawsuit that could be wrapped up while the meetings are happening this week. Advertisement But Sankey said no decisions have been made, and this is the week for hashing them out. 'We'll look a little bit more deeply at different ideas, which will put me at some point in a better position to answer those questions,' Sankey said. ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college football: and
