It's LONG. You've been warned.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Good morning. I'm going to go off script, which will make my staff nervous. Three points of recognition this morning. I've often thought we should have a media hustle award, but I'm not really confident in what behavior that may encourage.
So I want to give my first shout-out to George Somerville, who I was interacting with on Twitter, College Football Chaps podcast, getting here from London. Second is a guy named Ben Burnell, who captured me for the first interview of SEC Football Media Days yesterday in Utica, New York, right at the finish line of a 15K, which is a new level of hustle being tracked with your race results.
And the third would go to Nick Saban, who apparently was denied access because he didn't have his credential this morning and had to go back to his room. So we teach those lessons quickly.
It's great for us to be here in Dallas, Texas, for the SEC's 2024 version of Football Media Days. We're thrilled to be in a city where Dak is the quarterback, where the Dallas Mavericks made a run to the NBA Finals with a number of players from the SEC including Kentucky's PJ Washington, Arkansas's Daniel Gafford and South Carolina's A.J. Lawson, where our 2019 Women's Basketball Player of the Year and Mississippi State alum Teaira McCowan is part of the Dallas Wings, where over in Arlington, Florida's Wyatt Langford is having an impact in his rookie season for the Texas Rangers, and tomorrow night in Globe Life Field Paul Skenes from LSU, now a Pittsburgh Pirate, will take the mound as the starting pitcher for the National League in the All-Star Game.
To build my local credibility, back in 1991 I was here in Dallas for a set of meetings. I was with Bobby Williams, who's now the athletics director at Sam Houston State University, and we said, hey, do you want to go out to Arlington Stadium? Those of you who are locals will remember Arlington Stadium, before the ballpark and before Globe Life Field.
Nolan Ryan was pitching that night against the Toronto Blue Jays, and I brought, just to prove my credibility, the ticket from his seventh no-hitter that I attended while I lived here in Dallas because I spent 11 great years of my career here. Our two daughters were born just north in McKinney, Texas. I occupied offices along north Central Expressway when I worked for the Southland Conference, and it's great to be back here in Texas, representing the 16 universities of the Southeastern Conference.
Following a video that began with words like Billy Cannon running, Manning rolling, Manning looking. It was Archie Manning back in 1969 in Legion Field at a game, the first televised Saturday night game we had on ABC. It's Larry Munson yelling for Lindsay Scott.
It's a statement that here history runs deep, and then you saw Pat, as in Pat Summitt, and Perry as in Perry Wallace, and Goose Givens shooting over Duke in the 1978 Final Four, and you heard three words: passion, rivalry, family.
You saw confettis, you saw trophies, you saw champions, you saw celebrations. You saw a quarterback leading the marching band, and you saw Olympic Medalist after Olympic Medalist. That's the imagery to which we're accustomed in the SEC.
Then you saw something new. You saw Bevo, and you saw the Sooner Schooner, and you heard from 14 deep to 16 strong. 16 is our today, and 16 is our tomorrow.
Those 16 universities represent the currently enrolled student body of right at a half million, a global network of 5 million living alums and former students, direct local economic and state impact exceeding $100 billion annually, a number that will continue to grow.
And the innovative nature of these universities has caused us in the Southeastern Conference through the collective campus work to be the first collegiate athletic conference to convene an artificial intelligence consortium that's already creating research and collaboration and programming partnerships, including a faculty education program about how you manage artificial intelligence in the university learning environment. We've already engaged over a thousand of our faculty in education around that important topic, a new topic, an emerging topic in which we intend to lead as campuses.
We also gather Thursday here at Football Media Days to hear from a panel labeled Artificial Intelligence in Sports panel, that takes place, and I encourage you to join in that opportunity.
And staying in the technology sector with the changes taking place in college football, I am pleased to acknowledge that as we explore new ways to use technology in our competitive experiences and to advance the sport of football, we're proud to work with Apple to introduce iPads for sideline use during the upcoming football season to elevate the performance of our student-athletes.
You know the college football rule change that's gone into effect this fall permits teams to use this video resource and the large multitouch display of an iPad, combined with its amazing performance and incredible portability, I know has benefitted me on a daily basis, and it makes it the ideal solution for our coaches and student-athletes to use in-game video efficiently.
The now 16 athletic programs in the SEC last year earned 11 total National Championships. The SEC is the only conference to participate in every one of the 14 College Football Playoffs. For the 18th consecutive year, we led all leagues with the most NFL players drafted at 59.
We're excited about this year's College Football Hall of Fame inductees that include Kentucky's Tim Couch, Arkansas's Dan Hampton, Alabama's Antonio Langham and Texas A&M's Kevin Smith, and we're pleased to celebrate with new member, University of Oklahoma, the induction of Dewey Selmon, who's both an Oklahoma legend and the father of Mississippi State University Athletic Director Zac Selmon.
In the NBA Playoffs that I mentioned a moment ago, players who had played on SEC teams were represented in a greater number than any other conference with 49. One third of this year's WNBA All-Star roster are from the SEC. For the 2024 Major League Baseball season, we had 88 players on opening day rosters, and yesterday saw 20 players taken in this year's Major League Baseball draft. You're probably tired of hearing me say it, but those numbers are the most of any conference.
For the 25th straight year, we led the nation in football attendance. For the 28th consecutive year, we led the nation in college baseball attendance, having 8 of the top 10 attendance leaders in 2024.
Our softball already led the nation in attendance, nearly doubling the next closest conference. The same is true in women's gymnastics, and one of the growth sports for us, women's soccer, led in both average and total attendance during the 2023 season across the country.
We're also proud to have finished yet again with another SEC versus SEC College World Series Championship final this year. It was Tennessee and Texas A&M, the sixth overall SEC versus SEC baseball final, the third in the past four years, but if you adjust our membership, and remember it was Oklahoma and Ole Miss a few years ago, SEC teams have been consistently filling the National Championship series.
There's a total of 21 times across all sports where a National Championship, like women's tennis this year between Georgia and Texas A&M, involved two SEC teams.
When we look ahead to the Paris Olympic Games, there are a total of 270 Olympians with SEC ties. 85 will populate the Team USA roster, 42 of those U.S. Olympians are returning Olympic competitors, and 43 will be first-time Olympians.
We will have every one of our 16 universities represented on the U.S. Olympic roster, and that roster in U.S. track and field includes 35 percent of that roster being comprised of representatives from SEC universities. In swimming and diving it's 37 percent of that roster. We will have representatives on all four of the U.S. Olympic basketball teams, the men's basketball five-on-five team, the women's basketball five-on-five team, and the same in both the men's and women's three-on-three teams.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Good morning. I'm going to go off script, which will make my staff nervous. Three points of recognition this morning. I've often thought we should have a media hustle award, but I'm not really confident in what behavior that may encourage.
So I want to give my first shout-out to George Somerville, who I was interacting with on Twitter, College Football Chaps podcast, getting here from London. Second is a guy named Ben Burnell, who captured me for the first interview of SEC Football Media Days yesterday in Utica, New York, right at the finish line of a 15K, which is a new level of hustle being tracked with your race results.
And the third would go to Nick Saban, who apparently was denied access because he didn't have his credential this morning and had to go back to his room. So we teach those lessons quickly.
It's great for us to be here in Dallas, Texas, for the SEC's 2024 version of Football Media Days. We're thrilled to be in a city where Dak is the quarterback, where the Dallas Mavericks made a run to the NBA Finals with a number of players from the SEC including Kentucky's PJ Washington, Arkansas's Daniel Gafford and South Carolina's A.J. Lawson, where our 2019 Women's Basketball Player of the Year and Mississippi State alum Teaira McCowan is part of the Dallas Wings, where over in Arlington, Florida's Wyatt Langford is having an impact in his rookie season for the Texas Rangers, and tomorrow night in Globe Life Field Paul Skenes from LSU, now a Pittsburgh Pirate, will take the mound as the starting pitcher for the National League in the All-Star Game.
To build my local credibility, back in 1991 I was here in Dallas for a set of meetings. I was with Bobby Williams, who's now the athletics director at Sam Houston State University, and we said, hey, do you want to go out to Arlington Stadium? Those of you who are locals will remember Arlington Stadium, before the ballpark and before Globe Life Field.
Nolan Ryan was pitching that night against the Toronto Blue Jays, and I brought, just to prove my credibility, the ticket from his seventh no-hitter that I attended while I lived here in Dallas because I spent 11 great years of my career here. Our two daughters were born just north in McKinney, Texas. I occupied offices along north Central Expressway when I worked for the Southland Conference, and it's great to be back here in Texas, representing the 16 universities of the Southeastern Conference.
Following a video that began with words like Billy Cannon running, Manning rolling, Manning looking. It was Archie Manning back in 1969 in Legion Field at a game, the first televised Saturday night game we had on ABC. It's Larry Munson yelling for Lindsay Scott.
It's a statement that here history runs deep, and then you saw Pat, as in Pat Summitt, and Perry as in Perry Wallace, and Goose Givens shooting over Duke in the 1978 Final Four, and you heard three words: passion, rivalry, family.
You saw confettis, you saw trophies, you saw champions, you saw celebrations. You saw a quarterback leading the marching band, and you saw Olympic Medalist after Olympic Medalist. That's the imagery to which we're accustomed in the SEC.
Then you saw something new. You saw Bevo, and you saw the Sooner Schooner, and you heard from 14 deep to 16 strong. 16 is our today, and 16 is our tomorrow.
Those 16 universities represent the currently enrolled student body of right at a half million, a global network of 5 million living alums and former students, direct local economic and state impact exceeding $100 billion annually, a number that will continue to grow.
And the innovative nature of these universities has caused us in the Southeastern Conference through the collective campus work to be the first collegiate athletic conference to convene an artificial intelligence consortium that's already creating research and collaboration and programming partnerships, including a faculty education program about how you manage artificial intelligence in the university learning environment. We've already engaged over a thousand of our faculty in education around that important topic, a new topic, an emerging topic in which we intend to lead as campuses.
We also gather Thursday here at Football Media Days to hear from a panel labeled Artificial Intelligence in Sports panel, that takes place, and I encourage you to join in that opportunity.
And staying in the technology sector with the changes taking place in college football, I am pleased to acknowledge that as we explore new ways to use technology in our competitive experiences and to advance the sport of football, we're proud to work with Apple to introduce iPads for sideline use during the upcoming football season to elevate the performance of our student-athletes.
You know the college football rule change that's gone into effect this fall permits teams to use this video resource and the large multitouch display of an iPad, combined with its amazing performance and incredible portability, I know has benefitted me on a daily basis, and it makes it the ideal solution for our coaches and student-athletes to use in-game video efficiently.
The now 16 athletic programs in the SEC last year earned 11 total National Championships. The SEC is the only conference to participate in every one of the 14 College Football Playoffs. For the 18th consecutive year, we led all leagues with the most NFL players drafted at 59.
We're excited about this year's College Football Hall of Fame inductees that include Kentucky's Tim Couch, Arkansas's Dan Hampton, Alabama's Antonio Langham and Texas A&M's Kevin Smith, and we're pleased to celebrate with new member, University of Oklahoma, the induction of Dewey Selmon, who's both an Oklahoma legend and the father of Mississippi State University Athletic Director Zac Selmon.
In the NBA Playoffs that I mentioned a moment ago, players who had played on SEC teams were represented in a greater number than any other conference with 49. One third of this year's WNBA All-Star roster are from the SEC. For the 2024 Major League Baseball season, we had 88 players on opening day rosters, and yesterday saw 20 players taken in this year's Major League Baseball draft. You're probably tired of hearing me say it, but those numbers are the most of any conference.
For the 25th straight year, we led the nation in football attendance. For the 28th consecutive year, we led the nation in college baseball attendance, having 8 of the top 10 attendance leaders in 2024.
Our softball already led the nation in attendance, nearly doubling the next closest conference. The same is true in women's gymnastics, and one of the growth sports for us, women's soccer, led in both average and total attendance during the 2023 season across the country.
We're also proud to have finished yet again with another SEC versus SEC College World Series Championship final this year. It was Tennessee and Texas A&M, the sixth overall SEC versus SEC baseball final, the third in the past four years, but if you adjust our membership, and remember it was Oklahoma and Ole Miss a few years ago, SEC teams have been consistently filling the National Championship series.
There's a total of 21 times across all sports where a National Championship, like women's tennis this year between Georgia and Texas A&M, involved two SEC teams.
When we look ahead to the Paris Olympic Games, there are a total of 270 Olympians with SEC ties. 85 will populate the Team USA roster, 42 of those U.S. Olympians are returning Olympic competitors, and 43 will be first-time Olympians.
We will have every one of our 16 universities represented on the U.S. Olympic roster, and that roster in U.S. track and field includes 35 percent of that roster being comprised of representatives from SEC universities. In swimming and diving it's 37 percent of that roster. We will have representatives on all four of the U.S. Olympic basketball teams, the men's basketball five-on-five team, the women's basketball five-on-five team, and the same in both the men's and women's three-on-three teams.
