A humbled SEC should do Netflix again, and embrace its status as the most interesting conference

No Netflix cameras were rolling behind the scenes last year at SEC football programs. Which is a shame, because the world missed out on what would have been a riveting second season of “Any Given Saturday,” the SEC-focused documentary that came out this time a year ago.

Imagine if the cameras were rolling at Ole Miss, chronicling, well, all that.

Imagine if they were filming at LSU for the fall of Brian Kelly, firing of its athletic director, intervention of the governor and recruitment of Lane Kiffin.

Imagine if crews were at Auburn, Florida and Arkansas, three more programs with in-season coaching changes. Or if they were at Texas, chronicling the ups and downs of Arch Manning’s much-hyped debut season. Or at Vanderbilt with Diego Pavia, the quarterback who was opposite of camera-shy.

Maybe the SEC isn’t the dominant conference in college football anymore. But it’s still the most interesting. And it should embrace it. While “Any Given Saturday” isn’t returning this year, the conference should lobby for a second season on Netflix, and along with it push for all its programs — especially the six that declined last time — to participate.

This is an opinion shared by none other than Greg Sankey, commissioner of the conference where no matter the on-field results, it still just means more.

“I think the first year was outstanding,” Sankey said. “I think we had 10 of 16. But we need everybody to participate. We’ve had great conversations with Netflix about other projects, similar to that in other sports, but in football in particular. The participation rate needs to increase.”

The six schools that declined to let Netflix film during the 2024 season were Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss, Missouri and Oklahoma. Those are some of the conference’s biggest brands, and the first season, which aired last year, suffered because of it.

Considering that, the show did relatively well. “Any Given Saturday” was in the top 10 percent of Netflix shows in 2025, as judged by its engagement report. It ranked 780th out of about 7,700 titles, drawing 3 million views, per Front Office Sports.

The first season suffered not only from lack of full participation, but also drama. It was a rare season of no head-coaching changes. There were only three teams that made the College Football Playoff. It turned out Netflix picked the wrong year. There were six coaching changes and five CFP teams last year.

“We are interesting. We’re not dull,” Sankey said. “The ability to showcase the stories, the people, the atmospheres, the sport. Obviously in the United States, but with the Netflix reach globally, that’s valuable for our universities, not just the football teams.”

It was also valuable for at least one of the teams that cooperated: South Carolina, whose near-playoff run in 2024 was chronicled, the good and the bad. The highlights included Shane Beamer’s wife telling the crew that sometimes she’s afraid to leave the house and hear about her husband being on the hot seat. Beamer’s talk to his team after blowing a huge lead over LSU. And finally, after winning at Oklahoma, Beamer serenading his wife in the locker room in front of the team.

Beamer, speaking at this year’s SEC media days, said he still hears about that.

“My family and I were in Turks and Caicos back in February and was going through the TSA line down in Turks, and the guy that was doing everything in TSA looked at me and said, ‘You look familiar,’” Beamer recalled. “And then it hit him. He said, You’re an SEC football coach. I watched that Netflix special ‘Fantasia,’ because he saw the episode where I sang ‘Fantasia’ to my wife after the A&M game.”

For coaches worried there isn’t any benefit to the attention, Beamer said he hears recruits and their families mention the three episodes that heavily featured the Gamecocks.

So what are the prospects for another season? Netflix declined to comment. Box to Box, the production company, also did not weigh in. Sankey said there have not been talks for months, but clearly, he would be interested in another go at it.

When the series was announced, the excitement came from the track record. Box to Box and executive producer Paul Martin were behind “Formula 1: Drive to Survive,” which raised the profile of F1, and “Full Swing,” which was an inside view of the PGA Tour.

Martin, speaking last year, said there were some in those documentaries who didn’t participate, and it didn’t hurt the final product. And there were good and compelling moments in the SEC documentary: Pavia’s breakout, and the story arc of Billy Napier saving his job at Florida, although by the time many watched the series, that storyline wasn’t aging well.

Still, Martin knew what he was doing when he agreed to feature the SEC.

“It’s a phenomenal product,” he said in the summer of 2025. “There’s no experience like a game day at an SEC school. That’s not putting scorn on the other conferences. That’s just my experience going to the SEC schools. But, you know, it’s phenomenal. And what you realize is how important these institutions are to these communities. So when you see that and you see that they play a far, far bigger role than just a sports team, and that you start to understand why that passion’s there.”

That hasn’t changed, even with the SEC famously missing three straight national championship games. It’s still dominant in television ratings. And Sankey and his staff can also prod — not order, but heavily prod — every team to participate. Get that second season done.

And do it before Tony Petitti and the Big Ten take that from them, too.