Ex-SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, whose vision paved the way for college football playoffs, dies at 96

Pretty much every debate over who should play for the national title, every argument about the staggering amounts of money, every angry tirade about how college football is nothing like what it used to be, traces back to a man who saw a lot of this coming, then made it happen — Roy Kramer.

Kramer, the one-time head coach who became an athletic director at Vanderbilt, then, eventually, commissioner of the Southeastern Conference where he reshaped an industry to reflect the billion-dollar business it would become, died Thursday. He was 96.

The SEC said he died in Vonore, Tennessee.

The man who currently holds his former job, Greg Sankey, said Kramer “will be remembered for his resolve 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.”

Kramer helped transform his own conference from the home base for a regional pastime into the leader of a national movement during his tenure as commissioner from 1990-2002.

It was during that time that he reshaped the entire sport of college football by dreaming up the precursor to today’s playoff system — the Bowl Championship Series.

“He elevated this league and set the foundation" for Sankey and Kramer's immediate successor, Mike Slive, to build on, former Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley said. “He was smart and had incredible passion for this league. Every decision he made was what he thought would elevate the SEC. It’s the thing that stands out most when I remember him: his passion and love for this league.”

Kramer was the first to imagine a conference title game, which divided his newly expanded 12-team league into divisions, then pitted the two champs in a winner-take-all affair that generated millions in TV revenue.

The winner of the SEC title game often had an inside track to Kramer's greatest creation, the BCS, which pivoted 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 relied on computerized formulas to determine which two teams should play in the top bowl game for the title.

That system, vestiges of which are still around today, produced its predictable share of heated debate and annual frustration for a large segment of the sport’s fans. Kramer, in an interview when he retired in 2002, said it had been “blamed for everything from El Nino to the terrorist attacks."

But he didn't apologize. The BCS got people talking about college football in a way they never had before, he said. And besides, was it so wrong to take a baby step toward the real tournament format that virtually every other major sport used?

A four-team playoff replaced the BCS in 2014, and that was expanded to 12 teams starting last season.

Before Kramer was named commissioner, the SEC was a mostly sleepy grouping of 10 teams headlined by Bear Bryant and Alabama whose provincial rivalries were punctuated by the Sugar Bowl every year where, often, the league's best team would show what it could do against the guys up north.

Kentucky was the basketball power.

Not content with that role in the college landscape, one of Kramer's first moves was to bring Arkansas of the Southwestern Conference and independent South Carolina into the fold. That small expansion previewed a spasm of bigger reshufflings that continue to grip and overrun this sport some 35 years later.

With 12 teams, the SEC could divide into two divisions and play for the championship in a newly created title game. Kramer sold the rights to televise the games for five years to CBS for a then-staggering sum of $100 million.

A look at some numbers tells the story that Kramer saw before most people:

— In his first year as commissioner, the SEC distributed $16.3 million to its member schools.

— In his last, in 2002, the amount rose to $95.7 million.

— In 2023-24, it was $808.4 million.

“By any standard,” former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said in 2002, “Roy’s influence has been mind-boggling.”

Not everyone will agree that all this change has been good.

Kramer was long gone before college sports started paying players above the table — a result of the undeniable billions those players produce, most of which had, for decades, been largely paid out to coaches and administrators.

On Saturday, the 34th version of Kramer's SEC title game will take place in Atlanta. On Sunday, the 12-team College Football Playoff will come out, with Kramer's old school, 14th-ranked Vanderbilt, likely to be left out despite a historically great 10-2 season that Commodore fans will argue is something to be celebrated, not ignored.

But part of Kramer's legacy is that the old bowl system that ran this sport back in the day has been reduced to near irrelevance. A spot in the Sugar Bowl today only means something if it's part of that playoff.

Born Roy Foster Kramer in Maryville, Tennessee, on Oct. 30, 1929, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Maryville College, where he was a football lineman and wrestler. Kramer earned a master’s at the University of Michigan and served three years in the Army during the Korean War.

He coached football at five high schools in Michigan before he was named assistant coach at Central Michigan in 1965 and then head coach in 1967. Kramer was named the 1974 national coach of the year after leading Central Michigan to the Division II national championship and went 83-32-2 over 11 seasons in charge of the Chippewas. Kramer ended his coaching career in 1978 when he became athletic director at Vanderbilt, where he served until he left for the SEC.

Kramer did most of his work behind the scenes. He was reluctant to do interviews and didn't much like the spotlight — or the idea that he was reshaping college sports.

Foley, the former Florida AD, recalled rushing into a locker room full of umpires to berate them after he thought they'd robbed the Gators with a bad call.

The next day, there was no mass email to media announcing a fine for the AD, no penalty being meted out to the program.

But Foley's phone rang. It was Kramer.

“'That can never, ever happen again,'" Foley recalled the commish telling him. "That was his style. He wasn’t a grand-stander or a showman. He had an unbelievable ability to read people and deal with people.”

AP Sports Writers Mark Long and Dave Campbell contributed to this report.

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FILE - Southeastern Conference Commissioner Roy Kramer is pictured at the SEC headquarters in Birmingham, Ala., Tuesday, June 6, 2000. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)

FILE - Southeastern Conference Commissioner Roy Kramer talks with reporters during the opening session of the Southeastern Conference football media days in Birmingham, Ala., on Tuesday, July 25, 2000. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)

FILE - Roy Kramer, former commissioner , Southeastern Conference, listens to Mack Brown, Head Football Coach for The University of Texas, during his opening statement for the panel discussion for "Ethical Issues in College Athletics" in the Daniel-Meyer Coliseum on the Texas Christian University Campus, Thursday, Feb., 12, 2004. (AP Photo/David Pellerin, File)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Retired NBA great Michael Jordan took the stand at the landmark NASCAR antitrust case Friday and testified that he has been a fan of the stock car series since he was a child but felt he had little choice but to sue to force changes in a business model he sees shortchanging teams and drivers risking their lives to keep the sport going.

Jordan testified before a packed courtroom for an hour. His celebrity drew quips from the judge and even a defense attorney as he outlined why the team he co-owns, 23XI, had joined Front Row Motorsports in going to court against the top auto racing series in the United States.

“Someone had to step forward and challenge the entity,” the soft-spoken Jordan told the jury. “I sat in those meetings with longtime owners who were brow-beaten for so many years trying to make change. I was a new person, I wasn’t afraid. I felt I could challenge NASCAR as a whole. I felt as far as the sport, it needed to be looked at from a different view.”

Jordan's highy anticipated appearance followed dramatic testimony from Heather Gibbs, the daughter-in-law of race team owner Joe Gibbs, about the chaotic six-hour period in which teams had to sign an extension or forfeit the charters that guarantee revenue week to week throughout NASCAR's 38-race season.

“The document was something in business you would never sign,” said Heather Gibbs, who is also a licensed real estate agent. “It was like a gun to your head: if you don't sign, you have nothing.”

Charters are the equivalent of the franchise model used in other sports and in NASCAR it guarantees every chartered car a spot in every race, plus a defined payout from the series. The system was created in 2016, and during the two-plus years of bitter negotiations on an extension teams begged for the renewable charters to be made permanent for revenue stability.

When NASCAR refused to make them permanent and gave the teams six hours in September 2024 to sign the 112-page extension, 23XI and Front Row were the only two organizations out of 15 to refuse. They instead filed the antitrust suit and the trial opened Monday to hear their allegations that NASCAR is a monopolistic bully. 23XI is co-owned by Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, and Front Row is owned by fast food franchiser Bob Jenkins.

Jordan testified that 23XI bought a third charter late in 2024 for $28 million even with all the uncertainty.

“I’m pretty sure they know I love to win," the six-time NBA champion said. "Denny convinced me getting a third driver improved our chances to win, so I dove in.”

Like other witnesses this week, Jordan described a NASCAR that refused to discuss options or potential changes to the charter system, which he supports. He was asked why 23XI didn't sign the extensions last fall.

“One, I didn’t think it was economically viable. Two, it said you could not sue NASCAR, that was an antitrust violation, I felt. Three, they gave us an ultimatum I didn’t think was fair to 23XI," Jordan said, adding: “I wanted a partnership and permanent charters wasn’t even a consideration. The pillars that the teams wanted, no one on the NASCAR side even negotiated or compromised. They were not even open-minded to welcome those conversations, so this is where we ended up.”

Jordan referred to the NBA business model, which shares approximately half its revenue with players, far more than NASCAR.

“The revenue split was far less than any business I’ve ever been a part of. We didn’t think we’d ever get to what basketball was getting but we wanted to move in that direction," he said. “The thing I see in NASCAR that I think is absent is a shared responsibility of growth as well as loss.”

Jordan said he owns 60% of 23XI and has invested $35 million to $40 million in the team, which first fielded cars in 2021. Jenkins testified earlier this week that has not turned a profit since launching his team in the early 2000s and estimates he has lost $100 million.

Heather Gibbs earlier told the jury how she became co-owner of Joe Gibbs Racing the day after her husband, Coy, unexpectedly died in his sleep the same night their son, Ty, won NASCAR's second-tier Xfinity Series championship in 2022. Coy Gibbs had moved into a leadership role with JGR following the death of his older brother, J.D., in 2019.

Because Je Gibbs had lost both his sons and had built the team as a legacy for his family, his daughter-in-law took an active role in the organization and participated in negotiations for the charter extensions. When NASCAR made its final offer at 6 p.m. on a Friday night without permanent charters, she said her team was devastated. She said her father-in-law called NASCAR chairman Jim France pleading for a resolution.

“Joe said, ‘Jim, you can’t do this,'” she said. “And Jim was done with the conversation.”

Heather Gibbs said she had to leave to take her son to a baseball game in Chapel Hill and left worried about her father-in-law, who was 84 at the time.

“I left him sitting in the dark, listening to his blood sugar monitors going off,” she testified. “We decided we had to sign. We can't lose everything. I did not think it was a fair deal to the teams.”

Joe Gibbs is both a Hall of Fame NASCAR owner and NFL Hall of Fame coach. He led the Washington football team to three Super Bowl titles and JGR has won five Cup Series championships. JGR has 450 employees, charters for four Cup cars and relies solely on outside sponsorship and investors to stay afloat. The team will mark its 35th season next year and Gibbs told the jury that JGR needs permanent charters to protect its investment.

“It’s the most important point, a permanent place in their history books,” she testified. “It is absolutely vital to the teams for us to know we have security, it can’t be taken away, to know what we’ve invested in is ours.”

23XI and Front Row likewise have said they will likely go out of business without charters after racing this season without them.

Jordan praised France but also singled him out.

“I’m not discrediting the things NASCAR has done for the sport but I’m pushing them to be better,” Jordan testified. “The risk is to the drivers and the teams. The credit is not being given to the drivers who risk their lives every week without an insurance policy or union. There is nothing to benefit them.”

“I never saw Jim France drive a car. I never saw Jim France risk his life,” he added. “I’d like to give a little more credit to those who do.”

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Michael Jordan arriving to federal courthouse to testify in NASCAR antitrust case on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025 in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo)

FILE - Front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins, left, and 23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin arrive in the Western District of North Carolina on Monday Dec 1, 2025 in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Jenna Fryer, File)

NASCAR chairman Jim France enters federal court in Charlotte, N.C., on Wednesday Dec 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Jenna Fryer)

FILE - Michael Jordan, co-owner of 23XI Racing, sits in his pit box during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Talladega Superspeedway, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024, in Talladega, Ala. (AP Photo/ Butch Dill, File)