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The SEC was established in 1932 by 13 members of the Southern Conference. Three charter members left by the late 1960s, but additions in 1990 and 2012 grew the conference to 14 member institutions. The conference expanded to 16 members with the addition of the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas in 2024.[3]
In 1992, the SEC was the first NCAA Division I conference to have a championship game for football and was one of the founding member conferences of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). The conference sponsors team championships in nine men's sports and 13 women's sports. The conference distributed $721.8 million to its 14 schools in 2022.[4]
Member universities
Current members
The SEC consists of 16 member institutions located in the U.S. states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. The SEC was formerly divided into East and West Divisions, although the divisional alignment was not strictly geographic, with Missouri in the East Division while being farther west than several West Division schools, and Auburn in the West Division despite being located farther east than East Division schools Missouri and Vanderbilt.[5] These divisional groupings were applied only in football, baseball, and women's soccer, for both scheduling and standings purposes. In football, the two division winners met in the SEC Championship Game.
The SEC eliminated its baseball and football divisions once Oklahoma and Texas joined in 2024.[6][7]
↑ The U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Census Bureau designate the location of Mississippi State as "Mississippi State, Mississippi."
Membership map
Southeastern Conference Members
300km 200miles
Vanderbilt
Texas A&M
Texas
Tennessee
South Carolina
Oklahoma
Missouri
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
LSU
Kentucky
Georgia
Florida
Auburn
Arkansas
Alabama
Former members
Three schools have left the SEC, all charter members:
The University of the South ("Sewanee") developed an elite college football program around the turn of the 20th century, with some observers opining that the 1899 "Iron Tigers" were the most dominant squad in history.[12] However, after helping to establish the SEC in the early 1930s, it became clear that the small private institution's athletic teams could no longer compete with those from large state universities. Sewanee Tigers football squads never won a conference game, going 0–36 in league play over eight seasons while enjoying much more success against non-conference foes from comparably-sized institutions.[13] As such, Sewanee opted to leave the SEC after the 1940 season and transitioned its athletic programs to the lower divisions of intercollegiate play.[14] The school is currently a member of the Southern Athletic Association.[a]
Georgia Tech left the SEC in 1964 due to controversy over the conference's regulation of recruiting and scholarships. Georgia Tech athletic director and head football coach Bobby Dodd had lobbied the league to establish rules prohibiting several practices, particularly the oversigning of players by Alabama coach Bear Bryant and others.[15] When league members voted against tightening the rules, Dodd withdrew the Yellow Jackets from the SEC. The school played as an independent for several years, and in 1978, Georgia Tech joined another Southern Conference offshoot, the Atlantic Coast Conference.[13]
Tulane left the SEC in 1966. The school's athletic squads were competitive in the early days of the conference, but much like Sewanee, the private institution's programs found it difficult to compete against large state universities. This was particularly true in football; the Green Wave were SEC champs in 1949 but never again posted a winning record in conference play. Tulane left the SEC in 1966 and subsequently considered dropping to lower levels of NCAA competition or even ending its football program altogether to focus on academics.[16] However, the school has remained in Division I and joined the American Athletic Conference in 2014.[13]
White southerners committed to maintaining segregation created controversy preceding the 1956 Sugar Bowl, when the Pitt Panthers, with African-American fullback Bobby Grier on the roster, met the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.[19] White southern segregationists created controversy by claiming that Grier should be barred from the game due to his race, and whether Georgia Tech should even play at all due to Georgia's GovernorMarvin Griffin's opposition to racial integration.[20][21][22] After Griffin publicly sent a telegram to the state's Board of Regents requesting Georgia Tech not to engage in racially integrated events, Georgia Tech's president Blake R. Van Leer rejected the request and threatened to resign. The game went on as planned.[23]
The 1959 Mississippi State men's basketball team, led by all-American Bailey Howell, finished its season 24–1, winning the conference title. They did not participate in the NCAA tournament as school and state officials would not permit the team to play against Black players from northern schools. Four years later, in 1963, Loyola, with four black starters, played Mississippi State in the "Game of Change".[24]
It was not until 1966 that African Americans first participated in an SEC athletic contest, and the first black scholarship athletes did not play in the SEC until the 1967–68 school year.
The first African American to compete in the SEC was Stephen Martin, who walked on to the Tulane baseball team in that school's final SEC season of 1966.[25] In August of that same year, Kentucky enrolled Nate Northington and Greg Page on football scholarships,[26] and Vanderbilt enrolled Godfrey Dillard and Perry Wallace on basketball scholarships.[27] At the time, the NCAA did not allow freshmen to compete on varsity teams, which meant that these pioneers could not play until 1967. Page died from complications of a spinal cord injury suffered during a football practice before ever playing a game,[26] while Dillard suffered a career-altering injury before getting a chance to play for Vanderbilt's varsity and transferred to Eastern Michigan.[27] The remaining two both played in the 1967–68 school year. Northington made his overall debut against Indiana on September 23, 1967[28][29] and his SEC debut against Ole Miss the following week on September 30 (the day after Page's death[26]), while Wallace made his varsity debut later that year.[30]
In 1990, the SEC expanded from ten to twelve member universities with the addition of the Arkansas Razorbacks and the South Carolina Gamecocks. The two new members began SEC competition with the 1991–1992 basketball season.
At the same time, the SEC organized competition for some sports into two divisions. The Western Division comprised six of the seven member schools in the Central Time Zone, while the Eastern Division comprised the five member schools in the Eastern Time Zone plus Vanderbilt, which is in the Central Time Zone but was placed in the Eastern Division to preserve its rivalry with Tennessee. Initially, the divisional format was used in football, baseball, and men's basketball. The divisional format was dropped for men's basketball following the 2011–2012 season.
Following expansion, the SEC was the first conference to receive permission from the NCAA to sponsor an annual football championship game that did not count against NCAA limits on regular-season contests, featuring the winners of the conference's Eastern and Western divisions.[31] The 1992 and 1993 championship games were held at Legion Field in Birmingham, and all championship games from 1994 onward have been held in Atlanta—first at the Georgia Dome until its closure and demolition after the 2016 season, and since 2017 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.[31]
On September 25, 2011, the SEC Presidents and Chancellors, acting unanimously, announced that Texas A&M University would join the SEC effective July 1, 2012, to begin competition in nineteen of the twenty sports sponsored by the SEC during the 2012–13 academic year.[32] On November 6, 2011, the SEC commissioner announced that the University of Missouri would also join the SEC on July 1, 2012.[33] For football, Texas A&M was scheduled to compete in the Western Division, and Missouri in the Eastern Division.[34][35][36][37] Texas A&M and Missouri both left the Big 12 Conference.
On July 27, 2021, Oklahoma and Texas formally notified the SEC they were seeking "an invitation for membership". In a joint letter, Texas president Jay Hartzell and Oklahoma president Joseph Harroz Jr. wrote, "We believe that there would be mutual benefit to the Universities on the one hand, and the SEC on the other hand, for the Universities to become members of the SEC."[38] On July 29, 2021, the presidents of the current 14 schools of the SEC voted unanimously to extend an offer of admission to Oklahoma and Texas.[39] The boards of regents for both institutions on July 30, 2021, accepted conference membership, and the schools were tentatively scheduled to join the league in 2025.
On February 9, 2023, the Big 12, Texas, and Oklahoma announced they had reached a buyout agreement that allowed the schools to join the SEC in 2024. The Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners athletic teams thus began league play during the 2024–25 academic year.[40]
Membership timeline
Full membersFull members (non-football)Other ConferenceOther Conference
Commissioners
The office of Commissioner was created in 1940.[41]
In 2005, the member institutions of the Southeastern Conference formed the SEC Academic Consortium (SECAC), a collaborative endeavor designed to promote research, scholarship, and achievement amongst the universities.[42]
In 2011, the SEC Academic Consortium was relocated to the SEC headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama, from its original home on the campus of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and was renamed SECU. The SECU rebranded its mission to better serve as a means through which the collaborative academic endeavors and achievements of Southeastern Conference universities would be promoted and advanced. The SECU's goals included highlighting the endeavors and achievements of SEC faculty, students, and its universities; advancing the academic reputation of SEC universities; identifying and preparing future leaders for high-level service in academia; increasing the amount and type of study abroad opportunities available for students; and providing opportunities for collaboration among SEC university personnel.[43][44] The Big Ten Conference, since 1958, has had a similar program, now called the Big Ten Academic Alliance.
The SEC Symposium component of SECU was crafted by Vanderbilt University Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos, who at the time was the Vice President of the SEC Executive Committee and liaison to SECU.[45] In an interview with Dr. Zeppos about the formation of the SECU he noted, "that the member institutions of the Southeastern Conference are committed to a shared mission of fostering research, scholarship, and achievement. The SEC Symposium represents a platform to connect, collaborate and promote a productive dialogue that will span disciplinary and institutional boundaries and allow us to work together for the betterment of society."[46]
The SEC Academic Network was created in 2009 in partnership with ESPN. The SEC Academic Network was an online library of institutionally produced videos featuring academic initiatives and stories from all Southeastern Conference institutions. The SEC Academic Network was officially merged into the SECU operation.[47]
Total revenue includes ticket sales, contributions and donations, rights and licensing, student fees, school funds and all other sources including TV income, camp income, concessions, and novelties.
Total expenses includes coach and staff salaries, scholarships, buildings and grounds, maintenance, utilities and rental fees, recruiting, team travel, equipment and uniforms, conference dues, and insurance.
The following table shows institutional reporting to the United States Department of Education as shown on the DOE Equity in Athletics website for the 2021–22 academic year.[50]
The following table shows revenue specifically from NCAA / Conference Distributions, Media Rights, and Post-Season Football reported by the Knight Commission for the 2021–22 academic year.[51]
↑ Vanderbilt, which had dropped women's volleyball after the 1979 season (1979–80 school year), will reinstate the sport in 2025. Nelson was named head coach on December 23, 2022.[52]
↑ Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart has publicly stated that the capacity of Memorial Coliseum after the completion of renovations for 2024–25 will be between 6,500 and 6,700.
↑ Listed capacity includes grass seating; fixed capacity is 2,500. Expandable to 7,000.
↑ Dudy Noble Field's official seating capacity is 7,200, but its total capacity is 15,000, which includes privately owned seating in Left Field Lounge. Mississippi State holds the all-time NCAA on-campus record for one day attendance at 15,586.[74]
↑ Standard capacity for basketball; expandable to 15,000.
↑ Approximate capacity in 2024 following renovations.[91] Vanderbilt has yet to announce the exact capacity.
The Southeastern Conference sponsors championship competition in nine men's and thirteen women's NCAA sanctioned sports.[92][93] Under SEC conference rules reflecting the large number of male scholarship participants in football and attempting to address gender equity concerns (see also Title IX), each member institution is required to provide two more women's varsity sports than men's. A similar rule was recently adopted by the NCAA for all of DivisionI.[94][95]
↑ Vanderbilt will add women's volleyball beginning in the 2025 season (2025–26 school year).[97]
↑ Rifle is technically a men's sport, but men's, women's, and coed teams all compete against each other. Kentucky has a coed team, and Ole Miss has a women's team.
SEC teams did not play a uniform number of conference games until 1974. Prior to that, the number of conference games teams played ranged from four to eight, but most played a 6- or 7- game schedule. The league adopted a uniform 6-game schedule from 1974 to 1987, and added a seventh conference game from 1988 to 1991. Through this period and through the earlier years each SEC school had five permanent opponents, developing some traditional rivalries between schools, and the other games rotated around the other members of the conference.
After expansion to twelve programs in 1992, the SEC went to an 8-game conference schedule, with each team playing the five other teams in their division and three opponents from the other division. The winners of the two divisions would then meet in the SEC Championship Game.
From 1992 through 2002, each team had two permanent inter-divisional opponents, allowing many traditional rivalries from the pre-expansion era (such as Florida vs. Auburn, Kentucky vs. LSU, and Vanderbilt vs. Alabama) to continue. However, complaints from some league athletic directors about imbalance in the schedule (for instance, Auburn's two permanent opponents from the East were Florida and Georgia – two of the SEC's stronger football programs at the time – while Mississippi State played Kentucky and South Carolina every year) led to the SEC reducing the number of permanent inter-division opponents to one starting in the 2003 season. The TV networks televising SEC games were also pressuring for the change so attractive match-ups between non-traditional opponents would happen twice every five years instead of twice every eight years. With the subsequent expansion to 14 members in 2012, non-permanent cross-division opponents face each other in the regular season twice in a span of twelve years.
Under the format used from 2012 to 2023, each school played a total of eight conference games, consisting of the other six teams in its division, one school from the other division on a rotating basis, and one school from the other division that it plays each year. The permanent cross-division matchups were: Alabama–Tennessee; Arkansas–Missouri; Auburn–Georgia; LSU–Florida; Mississippi State–Kentucky; Ole Miss–Vanderbilt; Texas A&M–South Carolina.
The then-current scheduling arrangement was originally set to expire after the 2015 season, but the SEC presidents voted 10–4[99] in April 2014 to keep the current format for an additional six to eight seasons beyond 2015.[100] Additionally, since 2016, SEC teams have been required to schedule at least one opponent each season from the other so-called "Power Five" conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, or Pac-12); games against select football independent schools also qualify, including Army (which no longer counts as of 2024 due to it joining the American Athletic Conference, a Group of Five conference), BYU (before it joined the Big 12 in 2023), and Notre Dame.[100][101][102]
In 2023, the SEC announced the divisional split would be scrapped when Oklahoma and Texas join in 2024. The conference schedule will remain at 8 games in the 2024 and 2025 seasons while the SEC determines its long-term football scheduling format. Teams will play the same opponents in both seasons on a home-and-home basis. Each of the 14 members in the conference in 2023 will play either Oklahoma or Texas in 2024 and '25, but not both. Whether the conference schedule stays at 8 games or expands to 9 after 2025, each team will be guaranteed of playing all other conference teams home and away in a four-year cycle. The requirement of scheduling at least one Power Four (the Pac-12 lost all but two of its members, Oregon State and Washington State, before the 2024 season; the Beavers have meetings with Ole Miss scheduled in 2027 and 2030, while the Cougars are slated to face Mississippi State in 2030 and '31) team or Notre Dame remains in place. The championship game will feature the top two teams in the conference standings, with tiebreakers as needed.[103]
All-time school records (ranked according to winning percentage)
Through end of the 2023 season including SEC Championship Game. Records reflect official NCAA results, including any forfeits or win vacating.[104]
Alabama's record reflects 21 wins being vacated (2005–2007) and eight wins and one tie forfeited (1993).
Kentucky's record reflects 10 vacated wins from 2021.
LSU's record reflects 37 wins being vacated (2012–2015) for major level-1 rule violations and playing with ineligible players.
Mississippi State's record reflects 18 wins and one tie being forfeited (1975–1977).
Ole Miss's record reflects 33 wins being vacated (2010–2016).
Tennessee's record reflects 11 wins being vacated (2019–2020) for 18 Level -1 violations encompassing more than 200 individual infractions and an additional four (4) Level-1 unethical conduct violations along with playing 16 ineligible players.
Two former members have also won conference titles, Georgia Tech five and Tulane three.
From its establishment in 1992 through 2023, the SEC Championship Game pitted the SEC West Division representative against the East Division representative in a game held after the regular season has been completed. Starting in 2024, when the SEC eliminates its football divisions, the game will feature the top two teams in the conference standings. The first two SEC Championship football games were held at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama. Since 1994, it has been played in Atlanta—first at the Georgia Dome through 2016, and since 2017 at its replacement, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, with the current hosting contract running through 2027.[105] The "home team" designation alternated between the division champions during the divisional era, going to the East champion in even-numbered years and the West champion in odd-numbered years. The West led 19-13 in overall wins in the championship game against the East during the divisional era. As of 2023, the only pre-2024 members without a Championship Game appearance are Kentucky, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, and Vanderbilt.[106]
Bowl games
The post-season bowl game tie-ins for the SEC for the 2014–2019 seasons are:[107]
Payout is per team for the 2014 season; if different for opposing conference, payout for the SEC team is shown. Each conference member, irrespective of bowl participation, also receives an equal split of a payout to the SEC conference.[108][109][110]
^ The Sugar Bowl is contractually obligated to select the SEC champion if that team is not participating in the College Football Playoff. In years where the champion is unavailable the Playoff Committee will assign another SEC team to participate in the Sugar. Alternatively, in years where the Sugar hosts a playoff game the SEC Champion will be sent to the Fiesta, Cotton, or Peach Bowl if not selected for the playoff.
† The Big Ten and SEC will be eligible to face the ACC representative in the Orange Bowl at least three out of the eight seasons that it does not host a semifinal for the Playoff over a 12-year span. Notre Dame may be chosen the other two years if eligible.
° In years when the Big Ten places a team in the Orange Bowl, the Citrus Bowl will select from ACC teams remaining after the Playoff Committee and Orange Bowl make their selections.
‡ The Big Ten and ACC will switch between the Music City and Gator bowls on alternating years.
¤ For the 2020 through 2025 seasons, the Big Ten and SEC will alternate which conference sends a team to the Duke's Mayo Bowl or the Las Vegas Bowl. SEC will be in the Las Vegas Bowl during the even years and Duke's Mayo Bowl during the odd years.
Head coach compensation
This section needs to be updated. The reason given is: Many of these coaches are no longer employed by their respective schools.. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(September 2024)
The total pay of head coaches includes university and non-university compensation including base salary, income from contracts, foundation supplements, bonuses and media and radio pay as of the most recent 2023 season. As a private institution, Vanderbilt is not obligated to disclose salary information.
↑ Retired after the 2023 season. Kalen DeBoer will be head coach in 2024.
↑ Fired during the 2023 season. Mike Elko will be head coach in 2024.
↑ Fired during the 2023 season. Jeff Lebby will be head coach in 2024.
Player awards
Each year, the conference selects various individual awards. In 1994, the conference began honoring former players from each school annually with the SEC Football Legends program.
50th anniversary All-Time SEC Team
In 1982, the SEC Skywriters, a group of media covering the Southeastern Conference, selected members of their All-Time SEC Team for the first fifty years (1933–82) of the SEC.[112]
The members of the SEC have longstanding rivalries with each other, especially on the football field. The following is a list of active rivalries in the Southeastern Conference with totals & records through the completion of the 2023 season.
Since the 2012–13 season, SEC teams have played an 18-game conference schedule, which includes two games (home and away) against each of three permanent rivals and single games against the remaining ten teams in the conference. Men's basketball formerly used the East/West divisional alignment for regular-season scheduling and seeding the conference tournament, but it no longer does.
Before expansion to 14 teams, the conference schedule was 16 games. Although the divisions were eliminated beginning with the 2011–12 season, that season's schedule was still set according to the divisional alignments, with each team facing each team from its own division twice and each team from the opposite division once. As part of the proposal by SEC head coaches that led to the scrapping of the divisional structure, a task force of four coaches and four athletic directors was set to discuss future conference scheduling. At that time, options included a revamped 16-game schedule, an 18-game schedule, or a full double round-robin of 22 conference games.[113] However, these discussions came before Texas A&M and Missouri were announced in late 2011 as incoming members for the 2012–13 season, which required a format that could support 14 teams rather than twelve.
At the 2012 SEC spring meetings, league athletic directors adopted an 18-game conference schedule. Each school had one permanent opponent that it played home and away every season, and faced four other opponents in a home-and-home series during a given season, and then the remaining teams one each (four home, four away). The permanent opponents were Alabama–Auburn, Arkansas–Missouri, Florida–Kentucky, Georgia–South Carolina, LSU–Texas A&M, Ole Miss–Mississippi State, and Tennessee–Vanderbilt. The home-and-home opponents, apart from the permanent opponent, rotated each season.[114]
The 2014 SEC spring meetings saw a further change to the scheduling format. While the athletic directors voted to stay with an 18-game conference schedule, they increased the number of permanent opponents for each school from one to three. Each school retained its permanent opponent from the 2012–2014 period while adding two others.[115]
From 1966 to 1967, following Tulane's departure, through 1990–91, the year prior to the addition of Arkansas and South Carolina, teams played a double round-robin, 18-game conference schedule. No team was undefeated in this period, though three teams went 17–1 (Kentucky in 1970 and 1986, LSU in 1981). During the period from 1992 to 2012 when the league slate was 16 games, Kentucky went undefeated in SEC play in 1996, 2003, and 2012 (although only the 2003 team went on to win the conference tournament).
Since the return to an 18-game conference schedule following the 2012 conference expansion, two teams have gone undefeated in SEC play: Florida in 2013–14 and Kentucky in 2014–15.
The scheduling format will change again with the arrival of Oklahoma and Texas in 2024. The conference schedule will remain at 18 games, but each team will play three opponents home and away—two permanent and one rotating. The remaining 12 games will be single games against all other conference members, evenly divided between home and away games.[7]
Scheduling partners
The table below lists each school's permanent men's basketball-only scheduling partners from 2014–15 through 2023–24.
The SEC men's basketball tournament (also known simply as the SEC tournament) is the competition that determines the SEC's automatic bid to the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Notably, it does not determine the SEC conference champion in men's basketball—the conference has awarded its championship to the team(s) with the best regular-season record since the 1950–51 season.[116] It is a single-elimination tournament and seeding is based on regular season records.
With the expansion to 14 members in 2012, the 2013 tournament was the first with a new format covering five days. The teams seeded eleven through fourteen play on the first day, with the winners advancing to play the No.5 and No.6 seeds on Thursday. The top four teams receive a "double bye" and do not play until the quarterfinals on Friday. The expansion to 16 teams in 2024 will result in two additional tournament games, but the top four teams will continue to receive "double byes" into the quarterfinals.[7]
As of the 2022–23 season, the tournament has most often been held at two venues that have each hosted twelve times. Louisville Gardens in Louisville, Kentucky, served as the regular host from 1941 until the tournament was discontinued after the 1952 edition. The Georgia Dome in Atlanta first hosted the tournament in 1995 and most recently hosted in 2014. Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee, is now the regular host, with that venue hosting the tournament from 2015 through 2030, except in 2018 and 2022 (years in which it instead hosted the SEC women's basketball tournament).[117] Sometimes, the tournament will take place at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, or Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida. The 2018 tournament was held at Scottrade Center, now Enterprise Center, in St. Louis, Missouri, and the 2022 tournament was at Amalie Arena.[118]
Prior to moving to the Georgia Dome, the tournament (during its modern, post-1979 era) was most often contested at the venue now known as Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama, home of the SEC's headquarters and centrally located prior to the addition of Arkansas and South Carolina. Other sites to host include on-campus arenas at LSU, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt; Rupp Arena in Lexington; and the Orlando Arena.
NCAA tournament champions, runners-up and locations
† denotes overtime games. Multiple †'s indicate more than one overtime.
The SEC Men's Basketball Player of the Year is awarded to the player who has proven himself, throughout the season, to be the most exceptional talent in the Southeastern Conference. Various other awards, such as the best tournament player in the SEC tournament and all conference honors are given out throughout the year.
Schools play a 30-game league schedule (10 three-game series). Since 1996, schools have played all five schools within their division and five schools from the opposite division. Before the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M in advance of the 2013 season, schools missed only one opponent from the opposite division in a given season; each school now misses three opponents from the opposite division.
Since 1990, the SEC has become the most successful conference on the college baseball diamond. That year, Georgia captured the conference's first national championship at the Men's College World Series (MCWS). Following that, LSU won six of the next 19 titles, including five of ten between 1991 and 2000 and its sixth title in 2009. This was followed by South Carolina winning back-to-back titles in 2010 and 2011, Vanderbilt winning its first title in 2014, Florida winning its first title in 2017, Vanderbilt winning again in 2019, Mississippi State claiming its first title in 2021, Ole Miss winning its first title in 2022, LSU winning again in 2023, and Tennessee winning its first title in 2024. During that same span, 13 teams have also been runners-up at the MCWS. The MCWS final series featured two SEC teams in 1997, 2011, 2017, 2021, 2023, and 2024, and the 2022 final involved a current member and a future member.[a] The 2022 MCWS featured four current members, all from the SEC West, and both future members. Every current member has appeared at least 5 times except Kentucky, which made its first MCWS appearance in 2024. The only pre-2024 SEC member that has not appeared in the MCWS as an SEC member is Missouri, which has yet to make the NCAA tournament as an SEC member, although it made six MCWS appearances in the 1950s and 1960s while in the Big Eight Conference. Both Georgia Tech and Tulane have made appearances in the MCWS after leaving the SEC. One of the two newest SEC members, Texas, leads all schools in MCWS appearances with 38, and its 6 titles trail only USC (12 titles) and LSU (7). The other new member, Oklahoma, has two titles from 11 MCWS appearances.
SEC teams have also become leaders in total and average attendance over the years. In 2022, the top seven programs in average home attendance and the top eight programs in total home attendance were all SEC members, with the exception of Texas. The only SEC members to place outside the top 30 in both measures of attendance were Kentucky and Missouri, with the latter being the only one outside the top 50.[119]
The NCAA automatic berth is given to the winner of the SEC Baseball Tournament, which was first started in 1977. It is a double-elimination tournament and seeding is based on regular season records. Since 1998, the tournament has been held at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium in Hoover, Alabama and contested under the format used at the MCWS from 1988 through 2002, with two four-team brackets leading to a single championship game. The winner receives the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Division I baseball tournament.
SEC presidents and athletic directors voted to expand the SEC Tournament to ten teams starting in 2012. The division winners received a bye on the first day of competition, and the tournament became single-elimination after the field is pared to four teams.
With the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M for the 2013 baseball season, the tournament was expanded to 12 teams. The top four seeds receive a bye on the first day, with seeds 5–12 playing single elimination. The tournament is double-elimination for the next three days, then reverts to single elimination when four teams are remaining.
The arrival of Oklahoma and Texas in 2024–25 will result in further changes to the conference schedule. The SEC schedule remains at 30 games, but the divisional alignment was scrapped. Each team plays 10 three-game series—two against permanent opponents, and eight against rotating opponents. The future format for the baseball tournament has yet to be determined.[7]
In addition to the winner of the SEC Baseball Tournament, the Southeastern Conference usually gets several at-large bids to the NCAA tournament. Many teams have qualified for the NCAA tournament despite failing to win a game in the SEC Tournament. Two of these reached the MCWS despite going 0–2 in the SEC Tournament — Mississippi State in 2007 and Texas A&M in 2024, with Texas A&M reaching the MCWS championship series.
Men's College World Series champions, runners-up, and scores
Note: Teams in bold are current SEC members who advanced to the MCWS while in the conference. Teams in bold italics are current SEC members who were either in another conference or an independent at the time of their appearance.
Historically these schools were arch-rivals in all sports, but following Tulane's decades-long de-emphasis of sports, including its exit from the SEC in 1966, baseball is the only sport in which the two schools are relatively evenly matched. On several occasions match-ups between the two have drawn national record-setting attendances. Tulane reached its first College World Series in 2001 by defeating LSU in three games in the NCAA Super Regional. In 2002, the Tigers and Green Wave drew an NCAA regular season record crowd of 27,673 to the Louisiana Superdome.
Before the arrival of Skip Bertman as LSU's baseball coach in 1984, Mississippi State had long dominated the conference in baseball, with most of that success coming under coach Ron Polk, who returned to coach the Bulldogs in 2002 after retiring in 1997. When Bertman arrived in Baton Rouge, LSU's long-dormant program took off, winning eleven SEC championships and five College World Series championships between 1984 and 2001.
This instate rivalry is an intense local affair, with the Gamecocks and Tigers meeting each regular season, and has gained national prominence as both teams are often ranked in the top ten nationally. The highlights of the rivalry include the 2002 and 2010 meetings in the final four of the College World Series. Each time, South Carolina emerged from the losers bracket to beat Clemson twice and advance to the national championship series.
The SEC has historically been a strong conference in women's basketball.[120] Since the 2009–10 season, teams have played a 16-game conference schedule with a single league table; prior to that time the conference schedule was 14 games, again in a single table.[121] Like SEC men's basketball, women's basketball used the divisional alignment for scheduling purposes through the 2011–12 season; however, the women's scheduling format was significantly different from the men's. Each team played home-and-home games against five schools—one permanent opponent, two teams from the same division, and two teams from the opposite division; the non-permanent home-and-home opponents rotated every two years.[122] The remaining games were single games against the six other schools in the conference, with three at home and three away.
The league voted to keep a 16-game league schedule even after the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M. Arkansas and LSU are no longer permanent opponents, with the Razorbacks picking up Missouri and the Lady Tigers picking up Texas A&M. The other permanent opponents are the same as men's basketball, except for Florida-Georgia and Kentucky-South Carolina (both pairs had been permanent women's basketball opponents before the 2012 expansion). Each school plays two others home-and-home during a given season and the other ten once each. The divisional alignments no longer play any role in scheduling.[123]
The conference schedule will remain at 16 games after the 2024 arrival of Oklahoma and Texas. Each team will play home and away against one permanent opponent, with single games against all other teams, evenly divided between home and away games.[7]
SEC women's basketball was historically dominated by Tennessee, who won regular-season and/or conference tournament championships in 25 seasons through 2015, as well as eight national championships since 1987. In more recent times, the dominant team has been South Carolina, winning eight regular-season and eight tournament titles since 2014, as well as national titles in 2017, 2022 and 2024. In the 28 seasons the NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament has been held, SEC schools have reached the Final Four 32 times, more than twice as often as any other conference.[124]
The SEC women's basketball tournament is currently held a week before the men's basketball tournament. Like the men's version, it is a single-elimination tournament involving all conference members, with seeding based on regular season records. With the expansion to 14 schools, the bottom four teams in the conference standings play opening-round games, and the top four receive "double byes" into the quarterfinals. The winner earns the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA women's basketball tournament. Also paralleling the men's tournament, the women's tournament does not determine the SEC champion; that honor has been awarded based on regular-season record since the 1985–86 season.[125] The expansion to 16 teams will result in the addition of two extra games, but the top four teams in the conference standings will continue to receive "double byes" into the quarterfinals.[7]
The tournament, inaugurated in 1980, was originally held on campus sites; the first tournament to take place at a neutral site was in 1987. The three most frequent sites for the tournament have been McKenzie Arena in Chattanooga, Tennessee (seven times), the Albany Civic Center in Albany, Georgia (six times), and Bridgestone Arena in Nashville (six times). However, the only one of these venues to have hosted the tournament in the 21st century is Bridgestone Arena. Because demand for women's tournament tickets is generally lower than for the men's tournament, it is typically played in a smaller venue than the men's tournament in the same season. The most frequent venues since 2000 have been Bridgestone Arena, Gas South Arena at Duluth, Georgia (four), and Simmons Bank Arena in North Little Rock, Arkansas (four).
NCAA tournament champions, runners-up and locations
† denotes overtime games. Multiple †'s indicate more than one overtime.
Teams in bold represented the SEC at the time of their championship appearance. Teams in bold italics made their appearances before joining the SEC.
The Lady Vols have historically been one of the nation's dominant programs in that sport. Starting in the mid-1990s, UConn has emerged as Tennessee's main rival for national prominence. The Huskies won four national titles between 2000 and 2004; in three of those years, their opponent in the NCAA final was Tennessee. Connecticut also defeated Tennessee in the 1995 Championship game, the Huskies' first-ever title. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame brokered a deal that saw the teams renew their rivalry with a home-and-home series in 2020 and 2021, and both schools extended the series through 2023.
Other sports
Besides football, basketball, and baseball, there are a number of other sports in which the Southeastern Conference actively competes.
These two storied programs have often butted heads for not only SEC titles, but NCAA titles as well. Georgia has won ten national championships to Alabama's six. For decades the rivalry was dominated by two long-standing coaches, Suzanne Yoculan at Georgia and Sarah Patterson at Alabama. Yoculan and Patterson have since retired, bringing their personal rivalry to an end.
These two nationally acclaimed softball programs have proven to be the elite of the SEC and the nation. While consistently being ranked in the nation's Top Ten, both teams find their way to the SEC Tournament Finals and often clash once more in the Women's College Softball World Series.
One of the youngest rivalries featuring an SEC team, the Tigers and Texas Longhorns are the two most successful swimming and diving programs in the country. The two have combined for 17 NCAA National Titles since 1981 (nine for Texas, eight for Auburn) and between 1999 and 2007 won every national title awarded. The two regularly face off in a meet during the regular season, Auburn's men own a 12–9 record over the Longhorns. The women just recently began an annual series, with the Tigers winning the series so far 3–1. Texas was the only team to beat the Auburn men between 2001 and 2007.[126]
Since the SEC's founding in December 1932, the varsity athletic teams of its current 14 members have won 261 (38 in addition are current SEC teams that weren't SEC teams when they won a national championship) national team sports championships.
The following is the list of the national team championships claimed by current SEC member schools, including those tournament championships currently or formerly sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).[127][128] The NCAA has never sponsored a tournament championship for major college football, the championship game for which is currently part of the College Football Playoff (CFP) system. Prior to 1992, championships for major college football were determined by a "consensus" of major polling services, including the Associated Press and United Press International college football polls. Recognized women's championships from 1972 to 1982 were administered by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), not the NCAA. There was a one-year overlap period during the 1981–82 school year, when both the AIAW and the NCAA operated women's championship tournaments; since 1982, only the NCAA has sponsored women's championship tournaments. National equestrian tournament championships are currently sponsored by the National Collegiate Equestrian Association (NCEA), not the NCAA. Those national championships dating from before 1933 predate the founding of the SEC in December 1932; championships won by Arkansas and South Carolina before the 1992–93 school year predate their membership in the SEC; championships won by Missouri and Texas A&M before the 2012–13 school year predate their membership in the SEC; championships won by Oklahoma and Texas before the 2024–25 school year predate their membership in the SEC.
* A championship marked by an asterisk (*) indicates that the institution was not a member of the SEC at the time of the championship.
↑ For this purpose, "future member" is defined as a school that, at the time of the relevant MCWS, was confirmed to be joining the SEC in the future. Oklahoma and Texas combined for 49 MCWS appearances through 2022, but their 2022 appearances were their first after the SEC announced both as future members.
↑ Due to COVID-19 issues in the 2020–21 school year, the NCAA moved its women's volleyball championship from its normal fall 2020 schedule to spring 2021. It designated the championship as "2020", but the season as "2020–21".
National team titles claimed by current SEC institutions
NCAA and AIAW national tournament team titles won by current SEC institutions
The following totals include national team tournament championships sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) from 1906 to the present and the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) from 1972 to 1982. The NCAA did not sponsor tournament championships in women's sports before the 1981–82 academic year, and the NCAA has never sponsored a national championship playoff or tournament in major college football. To date, the fourteen members of the SEC have won 216 NCAA and four AIAW championships:[130]
For football scheduling, the SEC designates start windows (either Noon–1 EST, 3:30–4:30 EST, 3:30–8 EST, or 6–8 EST) before the season begins and schedules start times as the season progresses. ABC serves as the primary broadcaster of SEC football games with three possible broadcast windows available to air games: noon, 3:30 EST, and 7:30 EST. Every week, ABC designates its 3:30 EST window for an SEC game, carrying on the SEC's traditional window from its previous media rights agreement with CBS.[131] However, unlike with CBS, the marquee game of the week does not necessarily air at 3:30 EST. The marquee game can air in any of the three windows that maximizes exposure, which is usually ABC's Saturday Night Football window at 7:30 EST. There is no limit to the maximum number of SEC games that can be designated for Saturday Night Football. This allows for ABC to air as many SEC doubleheaders, or tripleheaders in some weeks, as they would like throughout the season (compared to a limit of two doubleheaders per season with CBS). ABC broadcasts are presented under the SEC on ABC banner. ABC also broadcasts the SEC Championship Game.[132]
Remaining football games are assigned to ESPN and its other networks. Each season, one football game and a few men's basketball games for each team are broadcast on ESPN+ and SEC+, the online component of the SEC Network. Most other sports are broadcast on the SEC Network or on SEC+.
All SEC schools broadcast their radio play-by-play through Sirius XM, and the conference carries its own full-time radio network on satellite channel 374, and via Sirius XM Online.
History
The SEC created the College Football Association in 1977 with other major conferences to negotiate contracts for broadcasting college football games.[133]
Jefferson Pilot Sports began syndicated television coverage of men's basketball games in 1986 and football games in 1992, which were picked after the CFA allocated games for its national contract.[134]
In 1994, the SEC became the first conference to leave the CFA when it announced a deal with CBS to televise one game each week. CBS paid about $17 million per season for the right to show the best game of the week. The network was required to televise each team at least once per season. The Conference soon reached a deal with ESPN to broadcast games in primetime.[133]
In August 2008, the SEC announced an unprecedented 15-year television contract with CBS worth an estimated $55 million a year. This continued the previous deal that made CBS the exclusive over-the-air broadcaster of SEC sports.[31] In the same month, the league also announced another landmark television contract with ESPN worth $2.25 billion or $150 million a year for fifteen years. The ESPN deal replaced the syndicated contract and ensured that all SEC football games would be televised nationally. The deal also committed ESPN and the conference to the creation of the SEC Network, which was finally created in 2014 and allowed for a significant increase in television coverage of SEC sports. Together, these contracts helped make the SEC one of the most nationally televised and visible conferences in the country.[135]
In 2020, the SEC announced a new deal that made ESPN the sole televisor of SEC sports starting in 2024. The ten-year contract was reported to be about $300 million per year and will allow ESPN to broadcast the SEC on ABC as well as rights to the SEC Championship Game.[136]
The SEC Network is a television and multimedia network that features exclusively Southeastern Conference content through a partnership between ESPN and the SEC.[137] The network launched on August 14, 2014, with the first live football game scheduled for two weeks later between Texas A&M and South Carolina on Thursday, August 28 in Columbia, South Carolina.[138]
The network is part of a deal between the Southeastern Conference and ESPN which is a 20-year agreement, beginning in August 2014 and running through 2034. The agreement served to create and operate a new multiplatform television network and accompanying digital platform in the hope of increasing revenue for member institutions and expanding the reach of the Southeastern Conference.
Awards and honors
Athlete of the Year
The conference has presented athlete of the year awards in men's sports since 1976 and women's sports since 1984.[139][140] The award was named the Roy F. Kramer Athlete of the Year Award in 2004 after the former commissioner.
List of Roy F. Kramer SEC Athlete of the Year winners
The NACDA Learfield Sports Directors' Cup is an annual award given by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to the U.S. colleges and universities with the most success in collegiate athletics.
The Capital One Cup is an award given annually to the best men's and women's Division I college athletics programs in the United States. Points are earned throughout the year based on final standings of NCAA Championships and final coaches' poll rankings.
College Hockey South, formerly known as the South Eastern Collegiate Hockey Conference (SECHC) - a non-varsity ice hockey conference featuring many SEC schools
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↑ "Title IX". insidehighered. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
↑ Under NCAA Bylaw 20.9.4, all Division I schools are required to sponsor a minimum of seven men's and seven women's sports, or six men's and eight women's sports. Bylaw 20.9.7.1 imposes the latter requirement on FBS schools. FCS schools, under Bylaw 20.9.8.1, may use either requirement. Note that this does not explicitly require a school to sponsor two more women's sports than men's sports. See "2012–13 NCAA Division I Manual"(PDF). NCAA. Retrieved January 7, 2013.
↑ "Through the Years: SEC Champions"(PDF). 2012–13 SEC Men's Basketball Media Guide. Southeastern Conference. p.67. Retrieved May 16, 2013. Since 1951, when the round-robin schedule was introduced, the title has been decided by a winning percentage on the conference schedule.
↑ "UK Hoops Announces 2009–10 Schedule" (Press release). University of Kentucky Athletics. August 24, 2009. Archived from the original on April 6, 2012. Retrieved June 16, 2011. The system increased the existing 14-game schedule by adding another rotating team from the East and West divisions. Kentucky's permanent partner is South Carolina and for the next two seasons, UK will face Auburn and Arkansas as their Western home-and-home opponent (sic). The Wildcats' Eastern Division partners are Georgia and Vanderbilt.
↑ "The SEC". Southeastern Conference. Archived from the original on September 26, 2009. Retrieved March 4, 2010.
↑ "Championships: SEC Champions"(PDF). 2012–13 SEC Women's Basketball Media Guide. Southeastern Conference. p.88. Retrieved May 16, 2013. From 1980 to 1985, the SEC champion was the winner of the SEC Tournament. Since 1986, the SEC champion has been determined by the regular season schedule.
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