Greg Sankey addresses perception surrounding conference realignment amid NIL lobbying

The times are certainly changing in college sports. With the transfer portal and NIL opportunities opening up plus the power conference overhaul of the last two years — the waters around us have grown. And with so many monumental changes to previously-longstanding precedents in the college sports world, issues have arisen across the board.

There is plenty of national debate about how to best implement name, image and license (NIL) moving forward, with many NCAA and conference administrators turning to Congress to fix things. The transfer portal is also creating pandemonium each offseason, and the latest conference realignment movement is raising some serious questions nationally.

Longtime SEC commissioner Greg Sankey — one of the leading voices in the college athletics community — assessed many of these issues and criticisms currently facing the NCAA when he joined the Paul Finebaum Show earlier this week.

Sankey denies SEC expansion was a ‘money grab’

Whilst explaining the blowback this wave of conference realignment has received from fans across the country, Finebaum noted that the moves “seemed like a big money grab” to some people, perhaps even most. Here was Sankey’s response to that claim:

“I don’t know the motivations of others and who moved what, what phone calls were made – and I just have to transparent about that. I’ve done well, I think, at explaining what happened with our expansion and the outreach from Jay Hartzell (Texas president) and Joe Harris (Oklahoma president) as they really said ‘we want to be apart of that.’ You know, money, TV went to the side as we thought about what’s right and what’s going to happen from a directional standpoint.”

“I’m happy to answer the same question I’ve answered for the last two years about our expansion. In fact, I’m enormously proud of our ability to bring in Oklahoma and Texas and how that works for us in this conference, how it works for our student-athletes, who in our very first call post-expansion asked about their entry date, and I asked one of our basketball players, ‘you want them in sooner, or would you rather it be delayed?’ They said ‘no, I want to play them both as soon as possible.'”

Sankey tells story of his support for NIL

“I expressed during our Media Days frustration and I’ll echo that today. I sat in an NCAA council meeting in late June. It was right after the SEC had two of its baseball teams in the College World Series final,” Sankey said. “We had a report about some steps the NCAA reasonably could take in better managing the Name, Image and Likeness era. You just heard one of our student-athletes say that… you know what, it can work. He’s got responsibilities now to businesses. He gets to activate around his learning experiences.

“Yet we hear that it’s not the healthiest circumstance. So we had this report, and then when asked for input from 40+ leaders around that table who are members of the Div. 1 council, I was the only one who spoke. There we go with the most important issue, pressing on how we support student-athletes and facing college athletics. We’re at a Div. 1 council meeting and no one other than me speaks to the issue? That was astounding to me.

“That’s not a creation of Charlie Baker, that’s not a creation of the Blue Disk, that is a responsibility that we share to help this enterprise get healthy. Now, we’ve always known that the effort to have a congressional outcome is a hill to climb. I don’t think that hill’s changed.”

Sankey takes up for NCAA, Charlie Baker

It’d be easy to blame the NCAA for any disorganization throughout college athletics, but Greg Sankey says none of the current issues can really be blamed on current NCAA president Charlie Baker.

“You know, Charlie walked in into a situation not of his own making. So he was an enormously popular governor in Massachusetts, a Republican in a more blue state, got re-elected, and at the end of his term, saw this NCAA opportunity. You certainly have to give him a lot of credit for his willingness to jump into a big challenge,” Sankey said.

“Now, he’s seeing how rapidly the landscape can change. Part of the reality is the NCAA is not assigned responsibility for deciding conference membership, and so there’s a lot of finger-pointing towards President Baker or the NCAA saying ‘well, you should do something.’

“I respect that Charlie’s trying to work through some of the issues. I greatly appreciate the dialogue that he’s initiated with myself and my colleagues. But all of us in the leadership positions have to improve our ability to articulate our vision.”

Sankey admits certain issues need

“I do think, though, we have some issues that have to be addressed. Can Division I function? Is 350+ members — there’s like no cap. So I accept that there’s criticism. I don’t think it’s all well-informed. I think as people talk about — ‘well look you can transfer as an institution, you can’t transfer as a student-athlete’ — no, actually you can transfer. I think we have to be more intentional about our remarks.

“But where criticism resides, that’s the reality. It is going to exist in an enterprise that’s big. So I’m more than happy to answer those questions. I think my colleagues will likely have to explain their decision-making, it’s not for me to do.

“I had a call today with a really respected leader in Division 1 who used the word ‘death knell’ for the opportunity. I don’t view that as the circumstance at all. I do think that collectively we’ll have to answer questions about why and how it can work.

“And again, I’m more than happy to provide SEC perspective on how this incredible conference of soon-to-be 16 universities will work well both now and well into the future.”