| NEWS Commissioner Greg Sankey on basketball postponements, SEC Tournament concerns, COVID changes- Tuscaloosa News

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COLUMBIA, Mo. - Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey made his first on-campus regular-season appearance of the 2020-21 school year Saturday at Mizzou Arena.

Sankey had attended only championship events for the SEC so far this school year, including the football title game last month in Atlanta, and also traveled for bowl games after passing a COVID-19 test.

Columbia was Sankey's first stop this weekend, as he planned to fly to watch Tennessee host Kansas in the nightcap of the SEC/Big 12 Challenge on Saturday night.

Sankey held an in-person, socially distant news conference with reporters before Missouri men's basketball played TCU.

The commissioner discussed the SEC's response to COVID-19, finishing the basketball season and whether he expects fuller football stadiums this fall.

The conversation has been slightly edited for clarity and length:

Q: How did you decide to make this your first trip to an SEC town this season?

Sankey: "I've been out for the SEC/Big 12 challenge every year. I tried to find two games. So that's No. 1. No. 2, I've been out for championships for cross country in Baton Rouge, soccer in Orange Beach, football in Atlanta and then traveled to bowl games and was able to do it in a healthy way, passed my COVID test. Got my result yesterday morning. And I personally enjoy the visits. I miss, probably like all of you, the chance to see real people not on a flat screen on an iPad. But to watch a competition, which is what we're trying to support in the best way possible. So to see it gives you a little bit of adrenaline, actually."

Q: How do you think the SEC has handled the challenges presented by COVID-19?

Sankey: "I went through with athletic directors earlier this week, if you will, an after action review from the fall. It began with what did we expect back in July and August? There was a knowledge that there'd be disruption. But I'm really proud of how everyone's worked to handle disruption. I was talking to (Missouri deputy athletic director) Ryan (Alpert) about relocating a football game from Baton Rouge to here on short notice, adjusting and calling (Missouri athletic director) Jim (Sterk) on a Monday and saying, 'Remember that game you're playing against Arkansas on Saturday? It'll be at home, but it'll be against Vanderbilt.' And the dominoes of those types of activities. So really proud of the flexibility and collaboration, but also we've done it in a healthy way. You're going to have disruption. We had disruption yesterday between Texas and Kentucky, which you hate, but that's just an environment we're not able to control and haven't been able to control for the last 11 months. You just have to react, and I'm really proud of how people have acted to support healthy competition but reacted when there have been disruptions."

Q: How do you expect the process to work with rescheduling postponed basketball games? Are there a number of finite days available?

Sankey: "There are, and you have to accept we may not be able to play everything. We fought as hard as we could ... and eventually, we played 69 of 71 football games. If you'd have told us that in August, that would have been like a victory parade moment. So in basketball on the men's side, our dates are late in the season and intentionally so to try to move through. If we have multiple disruptions in a week, we may have the phone conversations like that Arkansas-Missouri shift to accommodate and then a couple dates late where we could fill in. So the opportunity to play all the games still remains on the men's side. Just this morning we announced on the women's side (the rescheduling of Missouri at Auburn to next Sunday). Appreciate (Missouri women's basketball coach) Robin (Pingeton) and Jim. We had a late disruption, which actually caused a pivot on our testing protocols to test earlier. We didn't have teams traveling with disruption. ... We'll be caught back up in women's basketball Feb. 7 and we don't have room at the end. So that's going to be a question of, 'Can you manipulate the schedule before the tournament?' Or you'll have a loss of games. I think I've been open and honest to say, you may lose games, you have to be OK with that. And you're going to be in a percentage-based seeding with the tournament. But you may lose games — don't want to, but you may."

Q: Have there been any discussions about canceling the SEC basketball tournaments to keep teams healthy ahead of the NCAA Tournament?

Sankey: "Well, we can keep teams healthy and play a tournament. There's actually very few conferences, in fact the roster for me begins with one, that have played a postseason tournament in a sport in this COVID era, and we did that in women's soccer. All 14 teams over 10 days, staying in different hotels. We stayed healthy, named a champion. And when you think about the domino effect there, Sarah Fuller's around, comes up here, kicks off and then kicks extra points in the Tennessee game and is involved in the presidential inauguration. So we know by trying there can be great stories. I've also said we're going to wait as long as we can to make major decisions. We're going prepare in a healthy way, submit a health plan to the Metro Public Health Department in Nashville and Davidson County and be prepared to play a tournament on the men's side. And do the same in Greenville, South Carolina, on the women's side."

Q: Along the same lines, there's been talk about teams potentially opting out of conference tournaments. Have you had any conversations like that or is that possibly an option that can be available to teams?

Sankey: "Well, the great reality is the ethos of this conference is high-level competition. That's why you finish 69 of 71 games. That's why we played highly ranked teams in games on Dec. 12 when others didn't. Are we going to have conversations, if we need to? We had a healthy dialogue with our athletic directors about the focus on playing the season as scheduled. And that will continue to be our focus, particularly around the health of the participants."

Q: How concerned are you about the financial challenges that have come up across the industry and what that could mean for the future of college athletics?

Sankey: "The reality in this environment is, as I've said this many times to athletics departments on Zoom calls: The great thing about what's happened is I can have a lot more interaction. I'm not there with living, breathing human beings. But I can communicate directly. So in those times I've said there's no place I'd rather be in this circumstance than the Southeastern Conference. That's the start of how I look at the finances. We performed well last fiscal year, against projections. And in fact, increased our revenue distribution, and we're working to maximize our revenue distribution from our conference out. But you can see in what I'm sure would have been a full arena in a normal environment an impact today with probably 25% attendance. And we've talked continually with athletics directors, and even presidents and chancellors, about the impact of how do we adjust our practices? How can we maximize revenue distribution in this environment? But I've also listened and shared information about how people are adjusting, whether it's not filling positions, reducing travel groups. At the same time, we have the added expense of COVID testing, which last year at this time was clearly an unbudgeted reality. That is a contributing factor. But the net is I'd rather be here, dealing with it. We're going have reductions across the board from a revenue standpoint. That'll prompt decision-making within each department. And I'm sure there'll be carryover. But I'm confident our programs will be able to adjust well, even if it takes some time through those adjustments to recover."

Q: A few SEC football teams missed bowl games because of COVID. Does that affect any profit?

Sankey: "We haven't changed our revenue-distribution formula. We had a call on a Sunday morning with COVID testing realities here and that brought a stop to (Missouri's) opportunity. We had three on our side, and one, ironically TCU, wasn't able to play Arkansas. So that affects the money that goes in for distribution but doesn't affect our approach."

Q: How soon do you expect to see packed stadiums again in the SEC?

Sankey: "You know my time at Cortland State and Syracuse, I didn't take the pandemic planning course. I knew I should have opted in on that elective, I just didn't. We rely on our doctors. I think there's some light at the end of this. Right now, you see a really severe downward trend generally in numbers. But we're still having people affected. So our thinking about how we adapt needs to be maintained. We can't become complacent, as a society, or as a conference. And there's some hope that in the fall, we can move back towards normal. But I'm not able to guarantee that. In fact, we announced a football schedule on Wednesday and followed it up with my mantra last year which is, 'We're going to prepare to play the season as scheduled, but recognize the circumstances around the virus are going to guide us in our decision-making.' And what I've said to athletics directors, presidents, chancellors and our staff repeatedly and others is we have to be prepared to play our schedule and we can pivot off of that. What we can't do is, it's almost the tournament question, we can't chase every story, every nuance, every observation. We have to be prepared to play as scheduled and we can pivot off of that. And so that's the focus as we look towards the fall."
 
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