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Former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, who pioneered college football’s current playoff structure, has died at age 96, the conference announced.
Kramer served as the SEC’s commissioner from 1990 to 2002 and made it one of the richest conferences in the nation during his tenure, mostly by negotiating lucrative television contracts. He began by bringing Arkansas and South Carolina into the conference in 1991 — a small foretaste of the massive expansion that has engulfed the sport and college athletics in today’s era.
It allowed him to introduce the SEC title game, which contributed to a growing amount of media revenue. In Kramer’s last year, the SEC awarded $95.7 million to its 12 member schools, up from $16.3 million in 1990. In the 2023-24 fiscal year, the SEC awarded $808.4 million — a testament to the exponential growth in college sports that Kramer envisioned back in the 1990s.
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Former SEC Commissioner Roy Kramer speaks during an induction ceremony in the Doug Dickey Hall of Fame Plaza at the Neyland-Thompson Sports Complex in Knoxville, Tennessee on Friday, October 4, 2019. (Calvin Mattheis/News Sentinel, Knoxville News Sentinel via Imagn Content Services)
Kramer championed the Bowl Championship Series system, which moved college football away from its longstanding tradition of determining a champion through media and coaches’ polls. The system was in place from 1998 to 2013 until the College Football Playoff was introduced. What originally began as a four-team playoff, replaced the BCS in 2014 and expanded to 12 teams as of last season.
Kramer insisted that the vitriol stemming from BCS selections was not a knock on the system itself, but rather a welcome byproduct because it brought attention to college football.
BCS has been “blamed for everything from El Nino to the terrorist attacks,” Kramer joked in 2002 when he announced his retirement.
George MacIntyre, left, Vanderbilt’s new football coach, shares a moment with athletic director Roy Kramer after Kramer announced McIntyre’s hiring during halftime of Vanderbilt’s basketball game with the Citadel in Memorial Gym on Dec. 4, 1978. (Robert Johnson/The Tennessean)
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“Roy Kramer will be remembered for his determination through challenging times, his willingness to innovate in an industry driven by tradition and his unwavering belief in the value of student-athletes and education,” said current SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey.
Born Roy Foster Kramer in Maryville, Tennessee, on October 30, 1929, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Maryville College, where he was a football lineman and wrestler. Kramer earned a master’s degree at the University of Michigan and served three years in the Army during the Korean War. He died in Vonore, Tennessee.
Former SEC Commissioner Roy Kramer speaks to the press prior to the SEC Championship college football game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Florida Gators at the Georgia Dome. (Brett Davis/USA TODAY Sports)
He coached football at five high schools in Michigan before being named an assistant coach at Central Michigan in 1965 and then head coach in 1967. Kramer was named national coach of the year in 1974 after leading Central Michigan to the Division II national championship and went 83-32-2 over 11 seasons in charge of the Chippewas. He ended his coaching career in 1978 when he became athletic director at Vanderbilt, where he served until leaving for the SEC.
