Woo, baby, Greg Sankey ain’t screwing around ($$).
The SEC has yet to finalize its 2021 COVID-19 game cancellation policy, but sources have confirmed to The Athletic that league officials are discussing a potential financial penalty that could be applied along with forcing a team to forfeit if it does not have the minimum number of players available.
Essentially, if canceled games cost the league television money, then schools whose teams had to forfeit would receive less from the conference’s revenue-sharing agreement than schools that did not have to forfeit games. The idea behind this is to avoid penalizing schools that had their teams ready to play.
It’s one thing for Vandy to bail on a game in which it was going to get its ass kicked, minus any real consequences. It’s a whole other thing when the conference starts withholding checks, mofo.
Get The Picture 
My what a time to be alive.
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This whole sec expansion thing has got the commish thinking his poo don’t stink anymore…gives friday night try outs a new meaning for a saturday starting line up…
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Lightening someone’s pocketbook WILL get their attention.
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I must agree, historically, it has the same effect as yanking on the short & curlies…posting for a friend
Hell of an attention Grabber
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Love it…
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I’m guessing the financial penalty will make sure teams play … even if they have to play a lot of freshmen and walk-ons.
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Or girls, in the case of Vandy.
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Candy … FIFY, WCD.
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I haven’t kept up with protocol, but breakthrough cases are going to make this a shitshow, unless the testing regime just totally avoids the vaccinated. Which it should. We can’t have a casedemic for people who are statistically more likely to get struck by lightning (a vaxed 20yr old) than die of Covid.
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Right now, breakthroughs are running less than 1%, but if this grows at an incremental rate, then you have a valid argument.
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Is that the rate of breakthrough cases with symptoms or all inclusive?
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SEC has said they won’t test teams above a certain percentage of players and staff vaccinated. I think it’s 85%, 90%, something like that.
This is Sankey signalling the obstinate that they won’t be coddled if they don’t hit the percentage to avoid testing and walk into a buzzsaw with numerous players testing positive. Harsin loses his entire QB room to positive tests because he couldn’t get his team over the testing threshold? Trot a WR out there, buddy, and spend 4 hours looking like a complete doofus on the sideline while the other team hangs 100 on you. Or forfeit and explain to your AD why your media rights check was 10% shy this year.
So, as a practical matter, this incentivizes the Auburn AD to read Harsin the riot act. He’s managing Auburn’s most valuable asset, a multimillion dollar employee of a research university. SEC doesn’t have time for people who want to believe their politics somehow makes them immune to basic biology.
Public has increasingly had it with anti-vax whiners. Sankey knows it.
Btw, the OL coach at WCU just down the road here passed from Covid last week, 5 days from diagnosis to death. 32 years old.
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I hadn’t heard and I live here too. Thanks for the update.
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That’s dangerous territory where the health of the players is key. We already live in a world where coaches are incentivized to play players when maybe it would be better for them to sit it out (think: concussions). You’re just asking institutions to fake their numbers and potentially put others at risk once you start putting dollar signs on whether an infected player plays or not. Just a thought.
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Love this approach!
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IF we keep testing fully vaccinated people with zero symptoms…we will continue to have cases.
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Vandy might want to consider forfeiting our game at the end of September and the revenue losses associated with it. Kirby owes last year’s seniors a 100-point payback. It BETTER be that ugly.
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