Jason Cook talks party in ATL, SEC spring meetings, AD search

Notes from Jason Cook interview

* There will be about 900 people coming to the SEC welcoming event tonight from all 14 SEC schools. Every media outlet in Atlanta will be present for the only true big time welcoming event that will feature Commissioner Slive. There are some athletic directors and presidents from other SEC schools that will be in attendance as well.

* The event tonight will focus on taking A&M and Missouri out of College Station and Columbia and putting them in Atlanta for an evening. There will be a lot of talk about academics and tradition along with appearances by Reveille and the Missouri tiger. The yell leaders and Missouri’s cheerleaders will be in attendance, too.

* He tells people that A&M has always been an SEC school that happened to be stuck in the wrong conference for a long time. The SEC has provided an extremely welcoming environment and it’s obvious that they understand the ‘the sum is greater than the parts’ mentality. The SEC has tremendous leadership in Commissioner Slive and he is a master of strategy and reaching a consensus between all 14 schools.

* There was a lot of work done at the SEC meetings last week in Destin, Florida. The atmosphere was somewhat relaxed at the resort and everyone seemed to let their guard down a little which helped foster an environment that promoted working together to get the tasks done.

* The biggest thing that came out of the SEC meetings was the football schedule moving forward. The 6-1-1 schedule was decided on and South Carolina was chosen as A&M’s permanent cross-division rival. There were a lot of discussions on a 6-2 model as well, and the reason A&M pushed for that model was to allow the football players to have played the entire SEC by the time they graduated. The SEC will stick with the 6-1-1 schedule for the next couple of years as the television discussions carry on.

* If and when A&M plays Arkansas again in Dallas, the schools now have the opportunity to host recruits at the event if they are the designated home team. This rule was just recently passed by the conference and overruled the previous rule that prohibited buying tickets for recruits. If the game is going to be a conference game, both schools want to give the recruits the chance to see Cowboys Stadium and should be a win-win for both A&M and Arkansas.

* Equestrian was added to the list of official SEC sports last week which was huge for A&M. That is something that John Thornton and President Loftin really pushed for in order to allow every student athlete at A&M to compete for an SEC championship. Originally, they didn’t think that it was going to happen, but Thornton did a great job of talking to his counterparts at the other SEC schools and A&M was able to pull it off.

* The SEC spring meetings have become somewhat of a media event. The coaches, presidents and athletic directors are a little more relaxed during that time and having them all there at the same time makes for a reporters dream. Hopefully, there will be some more Texas media that comes to the event in the future.

* The television talks were definitely robust at last week’s SEC spring meeting. All the big guns from ESPN and CBS were in Destin and what the SEC is looking at now is how to compensate the league for a 50% increase in TV households with the addition of A&M and Missouri. There is a lot of conversation about how the SEC might further monetize their media rights in the future. There were some definite hints at an SEC network and those types of things, but there is still a lot of work to be done in that regard.

* CBS is important to the league because they provide a national scope over the airwaves that give coverage from coast to coast which is extremely important to the league. Looking at the ratings for the SEC and the conference’s brand, it would not be of any benefit to CBS to drop the SEC because of a high price tag when it comes to television rights.

* TV networks know that live sport is the only thing keeping viewers right now because everyone has DVRs and TiVo or can find their television shows online some other way. The college sports rights fees are escalading exponentially right now and that is due to being undervalued for way too long.

* There are a lot of little ‘pinch me’ moments happening right now that show that A&M is really going to the SEC in the matter of a few weeks. One of which is the work being put into the CBS intro for their SEC games and how Texas A&M will fit in with that. Yesterday, a shot of the SEC logo on the new basketball court was released which is another example of the little things that make this transition more realistic. The SEC recognizes the strength of the A&M brand and is working on some billboards at their level that will be strategically placed on highways throughout the south.

* The athletic director hire is an extremely important one and A&M is looking for someone with the right mix of expertise and experience for the job. The search firm has engaged with quite a few candidates that A&M is looking at and A&M is still on a very rapid timeline to get this thing taken care of. The job is piquing the interest of a lot of folks due to the momentum of the SEC, the hiring of Kevin Sumlin and Billy Kennedy and the stability of the women’s basketball program right now. They have been able to keep a tight lid on things and names haven’t been floating around which is in A&M’s best interest.

* When dealing with search committees, President Loftin likes to look at two or three candidates, make a decision and then submit that person to the board for approval.

* One thing to look for from a licensing standpoint right now is Tervis Tumblers. They have been flying off the shelves at Bed, Bath & Beyond and are becoming a household name in drinkware. They will be giving some away at the welcoming event tonight and are a hot market item for A&M right now.

* Sometimes Aggies can be their own worst enemy when it comes to social media sites like Twitter. He uses the approach that all Aggies are A&M brand ambassadors, so before you post whatever it is you’re going to post, people need to remember who and what they are representing.

* They are still going back and forth on setting a date to shoot the A&M Gameday commercial due to different schedules conflicting with one another. Right now, it looks like it will be later in the month of July and people will be notified once the exact date is set.

* Just because NCAA Football 13 comes out on July 10th, that doesn’t mean that will be the go-date for A&M to release their new jerseys. A&M is looking for the jersey release to tie into the SEC transition, SEC media days and the start of fall practice.

* The brand is hot right now because A&M has been part of the national conversation, both good and bad, for over a year now. The licensees are recognizing that fact and will be out in full force at the welcoming event tonight.  A&M has quarterly trips planned to New York to meet with other licensees as well. This move was all about increasing A&M’s visibility and making it the national brand it has the possibility to be, and the hot market shows that has been a success thus far.