On Wednesday, one of college football’s most beloved figures, former SEC commissioner Mike Slive, died at the age of 77. He was the conference’s commissioner from 2002-2015, and oversaw an era that took the SEC from mediocre to one of the most dominant and powerful conferences in college football.
Mike Slive showed how powerful and beloved conference commissioners can be
The former SEC boss died at age 77 on Wednesday.
Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images
Under Slive, the SEC catapulted itself to college football dominance.
He was the commish during the impressive seven-consecutive-national title run between Alabama, Auburn, Florida, and LSU, from 2006-2012.
“Slive oversaw a remarkable era of success in the SEC while helping shape the landscape of college sports as a national leader in college sports,” read an SEC statement on Wednesday. It’s hard to argue that.
In all, the SEC won 75 national championships in 17 sports during Slive’s run.
He’s a big reason the College Football Playoff exists.
In 2008, Slive, along with ACC commissioner John Swofford, proposed the idea of changing the postseason model at a BCS meeting:
On that April day in 2008, the model up for discussion was actually the “plus-one” rather than an actual playoff. The debate was very brief. The vote was even quicker: No.
But in retrospect, the mere fact there was official consideration of radical change was a critical moment. Regardless of the outcome or the model, when the commissioners discussed the idea that, as Slive put it, “four is better than two,” it carried meaning.
The motivation for Slive came in 2004, when Auburn went undefeated but had to watch USC and Oklahoma play for the title game in January as the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the land. Slive having to talk to the Auburn team after the 2004 SEC Championship set the wheels in motion.
Slive was at the forefront of launching the SEC Network.
Nowadays, there are a few 24-hour networks dedicated solely to certain conferences, but when the SEC launched its network in 2014, it was truly one of a kind, and it was Slive who oversaw its inception. The network, along with the conference’s existing television deals, brought in massive amounts of revenue for the SEC:
ESPN launched the SEC Network in 65 million homes, which ESPN called the most successful cable launch in history. After only one year, the SEC Network had a market value of $4.77 billion, according to the research firm SNL Kagan.
The year before Slive was hired, the SEC distributed $95.7 million in revenue to its 12 member schools. The league’s 14 schools shared $455.8 million after his final year in 2014-15.
His presence in the conference was unmistakable.
He didn’t have the loudest demeanor, but the confidence he carried while speaking about the conference went perfectly with the air of superiority SEC fans had acquired at the backend of his tenure.
As the SEC became the pinnacle of college football dominance, Slive would annually break out his “brag bag” at SEC Media Days, in which he’d list the conference’s accomplishments each year:
Slive started with his annual “SEC brag bag” quoting the great Muhammad Ali saying “It’s not bragging if you can back it up.” He spoke of the seven national championship teams, six national runner-ups, and numerous other individual awards stating “What we do today, and how we handle our successes and meet our challenges will determine the SEC of tomorrow.”
The first few minutes of this video captures it well:
People loved Slive as a person, not just a commissioner.
After the news of his death became public, several figures in the college football world spoke about how he left a lasting impression on them during his tenure:
Rest in peace, Commish.
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