SEC Commissioner Sankey to speak at Hoover chamber virtual luncheon Thursday

Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey is scheduled to speak to the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce in a virtual luncheon this Thursday.

The luncheon with Sankey will be conducted via Zoom at 11:30 a.m.

Sankey is expected to discuss the return of the SEC’s Football Media Days to Hoover on July 19-22. The media event is coming back to the Hyatt Regency Birmingham — The Wynfrey Hotel, where it has been held 18 times.

The SEC moved Football Media Days to Atlanta in 2018 and then came back to Hoover in 2019. The event was slated to be held in Atlanta in 2020 but switched to a virtual format due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year, Football Media Days was slated to occur in Nashville, but “the current environment related to the virus will not allow us to explore some of the unique fan experiences we had hoped to pursue in Nashville for this event," Sankey said in a news release.

The SEC has rescheduled the event for Nashville in 2023. "With two years to prepare, we look forward to making SEC Media Days an even bigger event in Nashville in 2023,” Sankey said.

The SEC plans to announce the site of the 2022 SEC Football Media Days in the near future.

Sankey became the eighth commissioner of the SEC in June 2015. He came to the SEC in 2002 as associate commissioner for governance, enforcement and compliance and in 2012 was promoted to executive associate commissioner and chief operating officer, becoming responsible for day-to-day operations.

Prior to coming to the SEC, Sankey served as commissioner of the Southland Conference for almost seven years. He joined the Southland Conference in 1992, serving as assistant and associate commissioner before being named commissioner in 1996.

Sankey, a native of Auburn, New York, earned his bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York College at Cortland and a master’s degree from Syracuse University.

He went on to serve as director of intramural sports at Utica College in upstate New York, then as a golf coach and director of compliance and academic services at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He was named the Golf Coaches Association of America District 6 Coach of the Year in 1991.

The Hoover Sun and its parent company, Starnes Media, are sponsoring Thursday’s luncheon. Click here to register for the luncheon and get the Zoom link.