Overview
- The conference held a moment of silence in Atlanta before the SEC Championship Game to honor Kramer’s passing.
- The SEC said Kramer died Thursday in Vonore, Tennessee, at age 96.
- As commissioner from 1990 to 2002, he added Arkansas and South Carolina to reach 12 teams and launched the first Division I-A conference title game in 1992.
- He served as founding BCS coordinator from 1995 to 1999, establishing the framework that preceded the College Football Playoff.
- Kramer brokered major CBS and ESPN deals that helped boost SEC distributions from $16.3 million in 1990 to $95.7 million by his final year; earlier, he won a 1974 Division II title as Central Michigan’s coach and later became Vanderbilt’s athletic director before Hall of Fame induction in 2023.