Media Days: Greg Sankey brags about SEC's success

ATLANTA - The Latest on SEC Media Days (all times local):

12:40 p.m.

Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey has opened the league's annual preseason media gathering by bragging about the conference's national championship success.

It was a good time and good setting to make the boast. Two league members, Alabama and Georgia, played for the championship in a game won by the Crimson Tide at Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Sankey said 11 of the last 12 national championship games have included at least one SEC team, and the conference has won nine of the past 12 titles. He said no other conference has had more than two teams represented in that time.

Sankey also spoke on the need to have legalized gambling closely monitored.

The SEC media days are being held in Atlanta this year after being held near Birmingham, Alabama every year since 1985.

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11:30 a.m.

The Southeastern Conference has opened its annual preseason media gathering at a new location.

The four-day event is being held in Atlanta, the first time it's been held outside of the Birmingham, Alabama, area since 1985.

The annual event brings together coaches and players from the league's 14 schools. This year approximately 1,000 media credentials have been issued.

Commissioner Greg Sankey, who opened Monday's event with his state of the SEC speech, says the move to Atlanta is not permanent. The event will return to Hoover, a suburb of Birmingham, in 2019.

The long-term plan is to move the event throughout the conference's 11-state region.