As Greg Sankey witnessed firsthand, Texas is now SEC Country

Texas is now SEC Country.

If that wasn’t clear when Texas – along with nemesis Oklahoma – announced in the summer of 2021 that they were joining the league, it is now – with images of raucous crowds at Texas-OU in Dallas and at Alabama–Texas A&M in College Station dominating Saturday’s first two viewing windows.

Viewing numbers also hammered it home: 8.1 million watched Texas’ soul-crushing, last-minute loss to Oklahoma on ABC and ESPN2, making it the most-watched Red River Rivalry game since 2009. And 7.23 million watched Alabama beat Texas A&M on CBS amid the typical frenzied crowd in College Station. 

Greg Sankey, the SEC’s commissioner, attended both games – separated by some 180 miles – and assessed the scope of the league’s full-throttle encroachment into the Lone Star State (and no doubt enjoying his share of the heavily fried State Fair of Texas cuisine). 

It was Sankey’s first-ever visit to absorb the spectacle and pageantry of the Red River Rivalry. When he was Southland Conference commissioner, he lived up the road in Allen, Texas, but never could make the game. This year, in a preview of what’s to come for his league, he saw the Cotton Bowl divided equally between fans wearing burnt orange and crimson. 

Before the game, he shook hands on the field with Texas loyalist Matthew McConaughey. And he told reporters before kickoff that the game’s day-time start amid the State Fair festivities is a “healthy environment.”

Will Red River Rivalry retain early kickoff time?

The big question is whether the game will retain its traditional 11 a.m. CT start time when the two teams join the SEC next year. The early start is not ideal for fans snaking their way to the Cotton Bowl. And a 2:30 p.m. kickoff perhaps would maximize the TV viewing audience.

No decision may be made until next spring. The date of next year’s game is also unclear but it’s expected to continue to be played in early October. The Red River Rivalry will essentially be SEC property starting next year.

Power conferences have angled for an increasing presence in Texas. While it lost Texas, the Big 12 is now flourishing by expanding geographically to the West, its footprint now stretching from Tempe, Arizona, to Morgantown, West Virginia. And it could include Spokane, Washington, as well in the coming years because discussions reportedly are back on between the league and Gonzaga.

The ACC has secured a piece of the state by adding SMU next year. Any Texan with a sense of the deep pockets of donors who reside within the tree-lined streets of Highland Park and far beyond knows SMU has the dollars to be a formidable athletic program in the ACC. But to be clear, it is not in the same stratosphere in terms of the national brand recognition that Texas and Texas A&M possess.

The SEC will soon possess the state’s two biggest brands – Texas and Texas A&M. The Aggies, who joined the SEC in 2012, saw 108,101 turn out for Saturday’s 26-20 loss to Alabama, the third-largest crowd in Kyle Field history.

‘Football is in their blood here’ in Texas

In the land of $60 million high school football stadiums, this is a state whose lifeblood is football.

“Football at all levels is in their blood here,” Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told me a few years ago, when he opened the sparkling new $1.5 billion facility, The Star, in Frisco. “They can’t have enough of it. There is no saturation point.”

This was the second most-watched Red River Rivalry in a full national window on record, behind only 2009, according to ESPN’s Vice President of Research Flora Kelly. The viewership was the seventh most-watched game this season and up 134% from last year’s matchup. The audience peaked with 11.1 million viewers between 3:45 and 3:56 p.m.

ESPN will assume exclusive rights to the SEC beginning next year.

If “it just means more” in the SEC, it certainly means more in Texas.

Saturday offered a sneak preview of what will soon be a boon for the SEC.