The SEC is not breaking away from the NCAA (at least not yet) but you wouldn’t know it by listening to Tuesday night’s Philadelphia Phillies broadcast.
Rumors that the SEC is parting ways with the NCAA beginning in 2028 were spread on social media after commissioner Greg Sankey addressed the media Monday night, and John Kruk appears to have been duped.
Kruk attempted to share the news Tuesday night, after Phillies play-by-play voice Tom McCarthy gave a shoutout to his sons’ high school baseball coach for winning his 300th game this week. While highlighting that it’s tournament season for high school and college baseball, McCarthy also gave a shout out to their Phillies broadcast colleague Ben Davis, who has a son playing for Louisville in the NCAA Tournament. Louisville is in the same region as No. 1 overall seed Vanderbilt.
“Did I just read something that the SEC is breaking away from the NCAA and becoming their own entity?” – John Kruk pic.twitter.com/0hWTGMalSJ
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 28, 2025
“That’ll be good, Vanderbilt’s good,” Kruk said. “Did I just read something that the SEC is breaking away from the NCAA and becoming their own entity?”
“I know they had a press conference today,” McCarthy said. “I didn’t see the details of the press conference. You could be right.”
Kruk wasn’t right. Sankey did not announced plans to break away from the SEC. But as a commissioner who will unabashedly do what’s best for the SEC, he didn’t dismiss the idea of breaking away from the NCAA’s governance.
“I’ve shared with the decision-making working group that I have people in my room asking, ‘Why are we still in the NCAA?’” Sankey said while speaking to reporters Monday ahead of the week’s SEC spring meetings.
And that was enough to inspire satire aggregator accounts on social media to run with the false news that the SEC announced plans to break away from the NCAA. One post from @derrico_henrio claiming the SEC was breaking away from the NCAA effective for the 2028-2029 academic calendar year had had more than 3.5 million views on X before the account was suspended.
BREAKING: SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey announces the SEC will depart from the NCAA to form an independent governing body, effective the 2028-29 academic season. pic.twitter.com/cNuKW1g1Yp
— Carson T. Kay, CFB Analyst (@carson_tk) May 27, 2025
Kruk undoubtedly saw one of those posts from a satire aggregator and brought it to the Phillies broadcast. What is surprising, however, is the fact that McCarthy, who calls college football games for CBS, thought the SEC breaking away from the NCAA was news he could have missed.