Greg Sankey outlines what the NCAA must change immediately

The landscape of college athletics has greatly changed over the past few years thanks to the emergence of the NCAA Transfer Portal and the introduction of NIL. But the changes to college athletics are far from over. On Friday, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey joined The Paul Finebaum Show on ESPN, where he mapped out some of the future changes that could be coming to the NCAA.

There are quite a few changes that Sankey sees coming to the NCAA, and they are likely going to be coming sooner rather than later.

“Well that’s the question to be answered,” Sankey said when asked by Finebaum about what the NCAA needs to change. “What warms my heart is that every problem being talked about today has existed for decade. We shouldn’t be so naïve to think that we can find ultimate solutions in six months, but the status quo doesn’t have to remain. It was painful to watch Saint Peter’s victory over Kentucky, and I mean that.

“But those are the unique parts of this national celebration of college sports that happens in March. It’s a reward to watch South Carolina and Louisville followed by Stanford and UConn. That’s what we do really well. So these needs for adjustment have to be made in order to provide that kind of excellent celebration and that kind of excellent access.”

Sankey headlines what changes are on the horizon for the NCAA

When asked specifically about what some of the changes that the NCAA might see over the coming months, Sankey had quite a few in his mind. Ultimately, he wants to ensure that student athletes are being properly taken care of, and that is a driving force in these discussions.

“What can change? I just talked about this infractions model that is always going to be the center of criticism,” Sankey said. “The fact that we’ve always had matter linger for four, five, six years is simply unacceptable. We’ve created an independent process. We have to evaluate whether that’s really necessary. The issue around a 400 or so page rulebook that legislates and then sends the enforcement staff on these trails where some of this stuff just doesn’t matter. People on campus are going to have to make decisions. We’re being challenged regularly in court and in legislatures, both at the state level and federal level.

“We look at how we support student athletes, whether it’s scholarship security, how we support their health both physically and mentally. The old stories of people going without food, those are gone, those are the old days. People being dumped from teams because they injure a knee. We had over 400 people on scholarship that never played last year because we support well. So we have to both communicate, and then we have to adjust and candidly expect more of ourselves because that’s what the culture expects of us in college sports.”