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Former SEC Commissioner Roy Kramer, who became a pioneer for college football’s current playoff structure, has died at age 96, the conference announced.

Kramer served as the SEC’s commissioner from 1990 to 2002 and made it one of the richest conferences in the nation during his tenure, mostly by negotiating lucrative television contracts. He began by bringing Arkansas and South Carolina into the conference in 1991 — a small preview of the massive expansion that has overrun the sport and college athletics in today’s era.

That allowed him to introduce the SEC title game, which added to a growing fount of media revenue. In Kramer’s final year, the SEC distributed $95.7 million to its 12 member schools, up from $16.3 million in 1990. In the 2023-2

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