Southeastern Conference
collegiate athletics conference operating primarily in the southeastern United States
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is a collegiate athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its 16 members include the flagship public universities of 12 states, 3 additional public land-grant universities, and 1 private research university. The conference is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. The SEC participates in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I in sports competitions. In football, it is part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A.
The SEC was established in 1932 by 13 members of the Southern Conference. Three charter members left by the late 1960s, but additions in 1990 and 2012 grew the conference to 14 member institutions. The conference expanded to 16 members with the addition of the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas in 2024.
In 1992, the SEC was the first NCAA Division I conference to have a championship game for football and was one of the founding member conferences of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). The conference sponsors team championships in nine men's sports and thirteen women's sports. The conference distributed $721.8 million to its 14 schools in 2022.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Southeastern Conference” as collegiate athletics conference operating primarily in the southeastern United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as collegiate athletics conference operating primarily in the southeastern United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q963227. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 1990, 2012 and 2024.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Southeastern Conference”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Southeastern Conference primary sources, Southeastern Conference archive and Southeastern research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Southeastern Conference”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Southeastern Conference” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.