SEC Media Days: The who, what, where and why of the event

Published 2:54 pm Tuesday, July 18, 2023

The annual SEC Media Days is officially here.

Running from Monday, July 17, to Thursday, July 20, SEC Media Days is a four-day event featuring each SEC head football coach and three selected players from each football team in the SEC. Each rotates from room to room, where members of the media interview them.

Email newsletter signup

SEC Media Days is typically one of the first times media and fans hear from players and coaches following the spring post-season lull. The event traditionally draws attention and hype toward the upcoming season and is the final event to do so until kickoff begins in late August and early September. The event is also an opportunity for media members that cover one team, like the Bulldogs, to speak to other teams, like Alabama or Auburn.

SEC Media Days started back in 1985 at the Holiday Inn Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama. While the venue would change, the event was held in Birmingham until 2018. That year — as well as in 2022 — the event was held at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta. This year, SEC Media Days will be hosted in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. This is the first year the event will not be held in either Atlanta or Birmingham.

The event was originally hosted at the end of July and would sometimes last until early August. However, since 2003, the event has slowly been moved earlier in the month. In 2018, the event was held in the third week in July and has remained then since.

Media receptions, concerts and a fan event on Lower Broadway — referred to as “Kickoff on Broadway” — will also be held in Nashville.

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart and the three Georgia players in attendance — Brock Bowers, Kamari Lassiter and Sedrick Van Pran — will each do their interviews and media availabilities on Tuesday, July 18. This is the second year that Van Pran is in attendance.

The defending SEC and national champions will be joined by Vanderbilt, Auburn and Mississippi State on Tuesday. Monday will have LSU, Texas A&M, Missouri and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey available. Wednesday will feature Alabama, Arkansas, Florida and Kentucky, while Thursday will have Ole Miss, South Carolina and Tennessee.

In addition to speaking with the head coach and player representatives from each university, the media will also be responsible for voting who they believe will win the SEC Championship. The last and only time Georgia was voted as the expected winner was in 2004.

The SEC Media Days comes off the heels of UGA’s recent media invite, where Smart and other staff members of UGA — including athletic director Josh Brooks — denied allegations of tolerating sexual misconduct. The availability is expected to feature quotes responding to the recent allegations and speeding issues that Georgia has faced this year.

However, SEC Media Days will still likely produce several quotes and expectations on the season from Smart and the players in attendance.