Greg Sankey on potentially cutting sports under revenue-sharing model: 'That's not what we want'

The dust is still settling on last week’s landmark settlement in the House v. NCAA case, which will help usher in the revenue-sharing era in college athletics. Pending a judge’s certification, schools can opt-in to disperse roughly $20 million to athletes, leading some to wonder what that means for non-revenue or Olympic sports.

Regarding the idea of cutting some of those programs, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey shared where he stands.

Joining the broadcast booth during Sunday’s SEC baseball tournament championship, Sankey said he hopes it doesn’t come down to cutting sports after the agreement. He pointed out the other NCAA championships featuring SEC teams – including multiple softball Super Regionals – and reiterated his desire to support Olympic sports.

“That’s not what we want,” Sankey told Tom Hart in Hoover, Ala. as Tennessee took on LSU. “But there are difficult decisions out there.

“I just talked about softball today. All through the day, we’ve got SEC teams playing. We want that to continue. We’re about to see track and field national championships in Oregon that will then feed into the national championships that determine our Olympic team. We want to support the Olympic movement.”

Greg Sankey calls for ‘engagement’ to support ‘breadth’ of student-athletes

Thursday’s announcement marked the start of a new era in college sports, and the settlement has multiple parts – back damages and revenue-sharing with athletes. The back damages total $2.77 billion as part of the agreement, and the NCAA is expected to be responsible for 40% of that payout. The final 60% will then come from a reduction in school distributions.

Still, Sankey said there’s plenty for the court system to sort out, and the NCAA could still turn to Congress for help. During an appearance on SEC Now, he argued “there’s no better time to be a student-athlete,” and he reiterated that Sunday.

With that, he said, there’s a need to back all of them – not just those in the revenue-generating programs.

“I’ve been here talking with you over the last few years about Congress,” Sankey said. “These issues are real in college athletics. Nobody has done this before in the world that we do in college sports. We’ve been pressured by the courts, by lawsuits. We’ve continued to adapt.

“That phrase that I’ve provided earlier, which is, ‘There’s no better time to be a student-athlete,’ that’s real. But we’re gonna have to have some engagement to try to make sure that we support the breadth that we have.”

Sankey: ‘More clarity’ coming over next year

There are still multiple important questions about the new college sports model. For starters, schools don’t have to opt-in to the program. It’s also unclear how Title IX would factor into payouts and how the distribution would be split.

The soonest this structure would begin is the 2025-26 academic year, depending on how smoothly things go over the coming weeks and months. The next step will be for Judge Claudia Wilken to certify it in what could be a months-long process.

As for when a path will become clear, Greg Sankey said the next year will be important.

“As I understand – so, I’m not in charge of everything, despite what some people will say,” Sankey said Saturday. “Not in the next couple of months. The next couple of months will be that process – the ability to walk through the legal system, the court system, a longer-form agreement. Decisions that can be made, then, at the conference level about certain structural issues, some national policy changes that need to take place. And then, it goes through the legal process that takes months upon months.

“I look out, probably a year from now when we’ll have – we have a level of clarity now. But we’ll have more clarity as we walk through these next 12 months.”