Greg Sankey calls for congress to help create 'national standards' for college sports

The House v. NCAA settlement was approved Friday, but SEC commissioner Greg Sankey believes there is still plenty more that needs to be done. He joined The Paul Finebaum Show on Monday to speak about the need for congress to continue to aid in helping to create a “national standard” for college athletics.

Although the newly approved settlement is certainly a step in the right direction, it didn’t address everything when it comes to NIL. Currently, the laws are different in every state, creating a massively uneven playing field, and Sankey wants congress to help create federal legislation.

“College sports doesn’t work well with 50 different standards,” he said. “If we’re left with just states legislating, then the nation of College World Series, and we just saw the highlights, for one. The NCAA’s Division I track and field championships are this weekend. Then the College World Series in baseball. Those don’t work very well if everybody’s playing by their own rules. So that’s one reason for national standards. I could go on as to other reasons.

“I think the interest has always been there. I think the attention has increased, the understanding of the changes we’ve made. I think even in the last fews days there’s been a number of members of the House and Senate quoted in a positive way about this new economic relationship. But to continue forward, I think this kind of congressional help and engagement and introduction of a meaningful bill to support college athletics remains a real priority for us.”

The recently approved settlement will now allow universities to pay players directly, as well as introducing roster limits. Additionally, a third-party NIL clearinghouse will now have to approve deals greater than $600.

The changes are set to take place on July 1 as Power Four programs will have between roughly $13 million-$16 million to spend on their rosters. These changes are definitely a step in the right direction, but Greg Sankey urged congressional leaders not to stop here.

“From my perspective there is a sense of urgency,” Greg Sankey explained. “I can’t speak for 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 senators. …I’ll go back to last year’s media days where I painted a picture of how sports brings people together. In a time where there are plenty of divisions, we reconvene for volleyball and soccer and football in the fall. You’ll have every demographic, every ethnicity, every political party, different wordlviews come together to rally around their team. My hope, my representation to members of congress, is that’s a really healthy model to explore.

“Not that you don’t have to negotiate differences, but the reality is we should be able to come together in a nonpartisan way to look at some of the new problems we’re facing and pursue meaningful solutions across the aisle and together. I do think that one of the realities that we have that has certainly been a learning experience for me is the election cycle does alter the pace of consideration. I don’t know that there’s any panic button here. We have to control that which we can control. I think from a philsophical standpoint, that’s reality. So we have a settlement. We have a level of control over that decision making. The judge had to make a final decision.”