{"id":334730,"date":"2026-07-09T19:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T19:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/334730\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T19:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T19:02:11","slug":"an-sec-football-festival-is-coming-to-downtown-tampa-this-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/334730\/","title":{"rendered":"An SEC football festival is coming to downtown Tampa this July"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For one week this summer, Downtown Tampa is going to be the epicenter of the college football universe. The televised spectacle of SEC Media Days is being hosted at the Tampa Marriott Water Street and JW Marriott July 20-23, bringing an entire nation of TV stations, news outlets, and reporters to town, alongside the head coaches and biggest players from all 16 teams.<\/p>\n

For locals, the highlight will be the SEC Kickoff Fan Fest on Sunday, July 19, from 5 to 8:30 PM, on Thunder Alley at Benchmark International Arena. The free and family-friendly event is the official kickoff party for the first-ever SEC Media Days in Tampa. The event features a live broadcast on SEC Network, interactive games, live entertainment, fan activations, giveaways, special appearances, and more. <\/p>\n

While it is free to attend the festival, attendees must RSVP in advance, which you can do here<\/a>. SEC Media Days was long held in Birmingham as a small gathering for reporters to chat with coaches and players across the league before the season began, but it slowly grew into something much larger, fueled by the boom of digital media and the insane capacity of Alabama fans to show up to anything in hordes even if it\u2019s the middle of a Tuesday.<\/p>\n

That it now has a Kickoff Fan Fest shows the spectacle it has grown into, and one that welcomes fans of all 16 schools. While the rest of the week is \u201cofficially\u201d a media-only experience, you can expect to see fans of each school lined up looking for autographs on the day of their appearance.<\/p>\n

Having SEC Media Days here is another win for the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, as every outlet covering college football will be showcasing the city all week long. If you\u2019re around a TV while it\u2019s happening, tune in for a live look.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t be more excited to host SEC Football Media Days festivities for the first time,\u201d said TBSC Executive Director Lanness Robinson. \u201cThe Kickoff Fan Fest will be the perfect opportunity and backdrop to get the week started, and will provide guests a fun, up-close experience with SEC football, whose motto is \u201cIt Just Means More\u201d. From the hundreds of media in attendance to the Kickoff Fan Fest followed by four days of SEC coach and player spotlights, as well as the other impactful programming, it\u2019s sure to be a memorable week for all involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the daily schedule, in case you feel like staking out the hotel for an autograph or selfie. In addition to the head coach, each school selects three players to join as representatives. And a note for college football fans: when you\u2019re watching games this fall and you see interviews with coaches and players in nice suits talking about everything from Christmas traditions to armed forces appreciation, you\u2019re watching what will happen in Tampa during SEC Media Days. Networks stockpile evergreen interviews to use throughout the year.<\/p>\n

MONDAY, July 20<\/p>\n

Kentucky \u2013 Will Stein<\/p>\n

Missouri \u2013 Eliah\u00a0Drinkwitz<\/p>\n

Oklahoma \u2013 Brent Venables<\/p>\n

Tennessee \u2013 Josh Heupel<\/p>\n

TUESDAY, July 21<\/p>\n

Auburn \u2013 Alex Golesh<\/p>\n

Georgia \u2013 Kirby Smart<\/p>\n

South Carolina \u2013 Shane Beamer<\/p>\n

Vanderbilt \u2013 Clark Lea<\/p>\n

WEDNESDAY, July 22<\/p>\n

Alabama \u2013 Kalen DeBoer\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida \u2013 Jon Sumrall<\/p>\n

Ole Miss \u2013 Pete Golding<\/p>\n

Texas A&M \u2013 Mike Elko<\/p>\n

THURSDAY, July 23<\/p>\n

Arkansas \u2013 Ryan Silverfield<\/p>\n

LSU \u2013 Lane Kiffin<\/p>\n

Mississippi State \u2013 Jeff Lebby<\/p>\n

Texas \u2013 Steve Sarkisian\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For one week this summer, Downtown Tampa is going to be the epicenter of the college football universe.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-334730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}