The Southeastern Conference will start providing injury reports during the 2024 season.
Finally!
Back in July at SEC Media Days, commissioner Greg Sankey addressed this possibility.
“I did acknowledge it’s a cultural change for us but things are changing around us,” Sankey said. “This is intended to be the beginning of a discussion and not a decision. That’s how I framed it.
“When you start to see the number of dollars being bet on legalized sports gambling around college sports, not just football, but men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball and baseball and softball, all those catch your attention. We have to be thoughtful about how information is managed.”
The system will be instituted in football, men’s and women’s basketball and baseball. Football teams will be required to submit their injury reports three days ahead of time, and then they’ll have to update those reports daily.
A final report will be due 90 minutes before kickoff.
In basketball and baseball, teams will have to submit their injury news the night before.
The SEC has announced the penalties for late or inaccurate reports. The fines will range from $25,000 to $100,000 in football and from $15,000 to $25,000 in baseball and basketball.
The model for these injury reports is similar to what you see in professional sports. The reports before game day will use designations like available, probable, questionable and doubtful.
On game day, the final reports will indicate available, game-time decision or out.
The MAC announced earlier this week that its schools will have to submit injury reports at least three hours ahead of kickoff. The Big Ten was the first conference to make life easier for gamblers with the system it started in 2023.
Better late than never, right? We now have to hope that every league adopts injury reports.
Not next month. Not next season.
Do the right thing and get it started in Week 2.