Andy Coats loves telling his classes about it. It’s one thing to teach antitrust law. It’s quite another to tell his Oklahoma students there once was a case, one that went all the way to the Supreme Court, that involved the school they attend — and it was about football.

Then Coats, almost 90 years old and still sounding as sharp as he was half his life ago, looks at his students and makes the big reveal.

“I’m the guy who screwed up college football,” he says.

Oklahoma, where the law school building is named after Coats, officially joined the SEC with Texas on Monday. When announced three years ago, SEC expansion set off a wave of realignment that changed the complexion of college athletics.

It was about the chase for television money. And it happened because nobody is in charge: The NCAA is powerless to tell conferences what to do. The conferences and schools are free to chase all the TV dollars, and in turn the courts and lawyers are free to demand the players get their fair share, their name, image and likeness money, their unlimited transferring.

It all stems from one lawsuit, 40 years ago, when Oklahoma — joined by Georgia, long before they became conference mates — teamed up against the NCAA to challenge its stranglehold on television rights. When it ended,…

DESTIN, Fla. — There are two Greg Sankeys. The first one sometimes will say something that reminds you he was one of the people supporting the old ways and makes you wonder if someone who supported the old system can be trusted to build the new one.

The other Sankey, however, leaves hints that he does get it.

In his first public appearance since the historic NCAA vs. House settlement, on the eve of the SEC’s spring meetings, both sides of the SEC commissioner were on display. Which side wins out, and how quickly, will mean a lot.

The necessary background for those who need it: The NCAA has agreed to revenue sharing, directly paying its athletes, as part of last week’s settlement agreement. But it was merely one part of the larger whack-a-mole approach in dealing with college sports issues. The chaos of the transfer portal and NIL is left unresolved. And some stakeholders — media members, lawyers, advocates, coaches and administrators speaking privately — believe having a collective bargaining agreement with the athletes is the only way to do that.

But the first side of Sankey still sounded skeptical on Monday.

“To be in collective…

DESTIN, Fla. — The SEC convenes Tuesday for its annual spring meetings, and the good news for those involved is the future football schedule is not the main topic.

The bad news is the future football schedule is not the main topic.

Whether to go to nine conference games or stay at eight seems quaint now compared with the heavy reality that SEC presidents, athletic directors, coaches and commissioner Greg Sankey must confront this week: revenue sharing, roster limits and other results of the settlement in the House v. NCAA case.

SEC presidents voted unanimously — at least in the final vote it was unanimous — to approve the settlement terms, which if approved will result in around 22 percent of annual revenue being paid to athletes, starting next year. It’s a landmark agreement, and the timing is good for SEC administrators, who can start to hash out what comes next in Destin.

There are, of course, other things going in the conference: A quarterback at Georgia is suing Florida. Oklahoma and Texas officially join the league in July, and their coaches will be present in Destin for the first time. Nick Saban is no longer coaching football….

It could be an elevator, a hallway or a corridor this weekend at one of the Final Fours, the men’s in Arizona or the women’s in Cleveland. Greg Sankey, commissioner of the SEC, has a team in each, so doubtless he will be at both. Len Perna, meanwhile, has an idea, and if he sees Sankey he may do everything in his power to get a minute.

At most, Sankey will smile politely, nod and keep the conversation short. For now, the chances of Sankey and his conference wanting any part of Perna’s idea are about as good as the SEC giving up football as a varsity sport.

Because that’s essentially what it would be doing here.

The notion of a college football “Super League” has been percolating for a while, and one idea finally went public on Wednesday, when The Athletic reported that a number of power brokers, including the presidents at Syracuse and West Virginia and Perna, the CEO of TurnkeyZRG, were pushing for a 70-team permanent group, employing athletes as players, making its own rules and leaving non-football sports to the existing conferences, as is.

Publicly, the reaction among SEC power brokers was crickets: Sankey and the presidents at…

The SEC is closing in on being a billion-dollar conference: Revenues continued to go up in the most recent fiscal year and are expected to keep climbing amid a new TV deal, College Football Playoff expansion and the addition of Texas and Oklahoma.

The SEC announced Thursday that it distributed $741 million to its 14 schools in the 2022-23 fiscal year, meaning an average payout of $51.2 million. That’s up from the average payout of $49.9 million during the previous fiscal year.

That revenue comes mainly from television deals (CBS and ESPN up until this year),  football bowl games, the Playoff, the SEC Championship Game, the SEC men’s basketball tournament and NCAA championships.

The current fiscal year largely will feature the same sources of revenue, so the average payout may only go up slightly. But starting with the 2024-25 fiscal year, the new TV deal with ESPN will kick in, and it’s expected to be worth around $811 million. There will be the 12-team Playoff, which will pay out more in television and other revenue to all conferences. And the addition of the Longhorns and Sooners should help attendance and other revenue.

The SEC still would be short of the Big Ten, with its new $1.1 billion TV deal and addition of four schools (USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington). But the…

College softball is back. The season begins Thursday with a flurry of preseason tournaments, including the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge kicking everything off with a matchup between reigning champion Oklahoma and Utah Valley at 11:30 a.m. ET.

It all leads up to the Women’s College World Series, which begins May 30 and features the eight top teams in Oklahoma City. The final two will play a best-of-three series, with the national champion crowned on June 6 or June 7.

Before the action begins, here’s The Athletic’s preseason college softball top 25. Final 2023 rankings are based on the ESPN.com/USA Softball Top 25.

1. Oklahoma (2023 final rank: No. 1)

The Sooners are vying for their fourth consecutive national championship — and they’re well-equipped to do it. Oklahoma returns four first-team All-Big 12 selections from last season: INF Tiare Jennings, P Nicole May, C Kinzie Hansen and INF Jayda Coleman, the reigning conference player of the year. Though ace Jordy Bahl transferred to Nebraska, coach Patty Gasso struck gold in the transfer portal with the addition of Kelly Maxwell, a former Oklahoma State pitcher who led the Cowgirls to three consecutive WCWS appearances and shared 2022 Big 12 pitcher of the year honors with Bahl.

2. Stanford (No. 3)

The Cardinal are…

ATHENS — After being one of the final holdouts in the SEC, Georgia will open beer sales to all fans at home football games in 2024.

Athletic director Josh Brooks announced the news at Wednesday’s meeting of the school’s athletic board. The move comes five years after the SEC lifted its ban on alcohol sales at conference events.

Georgia and Auburn were the final two SEC schools to not sell beer to the general public at football games. Auburn has not formally announced whether it will do so this fall but has been slowly moving in that direction, selling beer at basketball games in Nov. 2023, becoming the final SEC school to sell alcohol at athletic events.

Georgia has been on a slow march to full-fledged alcohol sales.

When the SEC lifted its ban in the summer of 2019, Georgia allowed alcohol to be brought to private suites and certain club areas. The school later allowed beer sales for men’s and women’s basketball games at Stegeman Coliseum, followed in 2022 by baseball and softball games.

Attendance and revenue are of course the two driving factors. College sports officials have known for several years they had to work harder to get fans who preferred the comfort of home or to just tailgate but not spend to go in the stadium. The recent signs are the efforts are working,…

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — It was probably the same table. A small folding table in the cramped room that on game days is used for the visiting team’s news conference. Ten years ago at that table, the Georgia coach, after barely winning a game in which two of his players tore ACLs, drew blood via a splinter on the table. Two years later, the coach sat at that table and talked about losing the game as well as his star player to another knee injury.

It wasn’t just injuries. For years, the Georgia football program was the one where fans expected something to go wrong. When things were going right, fans wondered what was around the corner. And just when it seemed all would finally stay right … the bad thing happened.

The mojo has changed. You could tell Saturday night by looking at that table.

Carson Beck, the unbeaten starting quarterback, took questions from a horde of reporters as he sat at the table. Georgia teammate Tykee Smith walked by, leaning over the shoulder of a reporter.

“Make sure you tell Carson I’m a big fan,” Smith said, then walked off.

Minutes later, Kirby Smart sat at the table. His agent, Jimmy Sexton, who facilitated Smart’s hire at his alma mater eight years ago, watched a few feet away. Smart’s wife, Mary Beth, and one of their sons sat against the…

ATHENS, Ga. — It has been a difficult offseason for the Georgia football program since winning its second consecutive national championship, beginning with a tragic car accident that took the lives of a player and athletic department employee.

But recent reporting in an Atlanta newspaper that the school has taken sexual assault allegations lightly prompted coach Kirby Smart and school officials to hold a rare briefing with a group of media members Tuesday to defend themselves.

“We take these allegations extremely serious — I take these allegations extremely serious,” Smart said. “We do not tolerate sexual misconduct in our organization. I’m a football coach, I’m responsible for this program, and it starts with me. I see this through the lens of, I have a wife and a daughter. When I think about these situations, I think about them. It’s personal to me. But I will not tolerate false accusations that this program or this university condone sexual misconduct. We have no tolerance for sexual assault or abuse. Never have and never will.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that 11 players during Smart’s tenure remained with the team after women reported violent encounters to the police or university. The newspaper did not identify the 11 players and…

The Georgia football team will not be going to the White House after declining an invitation, saying the date offered was “not feasible.”

The White House is hosting an event for NCAA championship teams on June 12, where it plans to host a number of winners from different sports and different divisions. That date was also offered to Georgia, the school said, but it has declined, per a statement released by the athletic department:

“The University of Georgia first received on May 3 an invitation for the Bulldog football team to visit the White House on June 12.  Unfortunately, the date suggested is not feasible given the student-athlete calendar and time of year. However, we are appreciative of the invitation and look forward to other opportunities for Georgia teams moving forward.”

The winners of the NCAA basketball tournaments have also been invited to a separate ceremony later this month: The LSU women’s basketball team and UConn men’s basketball team will visit the White House on May 26.

This means the last college football champion to visit the White House remains the LSU football team after the 2019 season. The Alabama football team did not go after the 2020 season in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic protocols.

Georgia also did not go after winning the 2021 season…