Roy Kramer, who as commissioner of the SEC helped transform the league into a national power while reshaping the entire sport of college football with a precursor to today’s playoff system, has died. He died Thursday, according to the SEC. Kramer was SEC commissioner between 1990 and 2002. He was the first to imagine a conference title game, which divided his newly expanded 12-team league into divisions and pitted the two champs in a winner-take-all affair that generated millions in TV revenue.That led to his greatest contribution — the Bowl Championship Series system that moved college football away from its long-held tradition of determining a champion via media and coaches’ polls. The system in place from 1998 through 2013 produced its share of predictable debate and caused annual frustration for a large segment of the sport’s fans, but the pathway had been created for the true tournament format that’s held in just about every other team sport. A four-team playoff replaced the BCS in 2014, and that was expanded to 12 teams starting last season.Kramer served as coordinator of the BCS from 1995-99 when the system was developed using computerized formulas to determine which two teams should play in the top bowl game for the title.Kramer was named the SEC’s commissioner in 1990 and made it one of the richest conferences in the nation during his tenure, mostly by successfully negotiating lucrative television contracts. He began by bringing Arkansas and South Carolina into the conference in 1991 — a small preview of the massive expansion that has overrun the sport some 35 years later.That allowed him to introduce the SEC title game, which added to a growing font of media revenue. In Kramer’s last year, the SEC distributed $95.7 million in revenue to its 12 member schools, a jump from 1990 when the SEC brought in $16.3 million. In the 2023-24 fiscal year, the SEC distributed $808.4 million — a testament to the exponential growth in college sports that Kramer envisioned back in the ’90s.Kramer insisted the vitriol that stemmed from BCS selections wasn’t a knock on the system itself but rather a welcomed byproduct because it brought attention to college football.The current SEC commissioner Greg…
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2025-12-05 20:24:50
