Ross Dellenger: Greg Sankey suggests NCAA investigations into NIL are a waste of time

The NCAA has opened three NIL related investigations in recent weeks to some of the biggest brands in college sports. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey believes that the NCAA should be turning its attention elsewhere, instead of focusing on potential NIL violations.

Sankey spoke with Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger recently about the NCAA investigating NIL violations with Tennessee, Florida and Florida State. Sankey declined to comment on any specific cases but did apparently imply that it’s not worth the NCAA pursuing.

“Yea, he did decline to speak specifically about the Tennessee case or any active investigation, but he did say some interesting things,” Dellenger said Friday afternoon on The Paul Finebaum Show. “He basically suggested that these investigations into NIL related matters are kind of a waste of time. That they are a ‘distraction,’ I think is the word he used, and that the NCAA should instead be focused on the bigger issues right now, the bigger reality, I think, is how he put it.”

College sports have changed drastically in recent years, with NIL, the transfer portal, conference realignment and more.

Greg Sankey believes the NCAA should focus its attention on bigger issues in college sports, instead of worrying about NIL violations.

“All these litigation, all this legal action that is kind of chipping away at all these rules. The focus should be on creating a new model and not pursuing, I think, these individual cases, is kind of what he said,” Dellenger recalled.

With that said, Dellenger also pointed out that it’s arguably in the best interest of Sankey for the NCAA to not pursue NIL violations, considering two of the three schools that have been investigated are from his conference.

“Now, of course, as the commissioner of the SEC, two of the three cases we know about of NIL related cases have happened in his league – Tennessee and Florida,” Dellenger said. “Florida State was already levied some sanction involving NIL. But I think a lot of people would probably agree with Greg Sankey that the focus should be on other matters.”

Dellenger did somewhat defend Charlie Baker and the NCAA. As Dellenger noted, the organization isn’t focusing all of its attention on NIL violations. The question is, should the NCAA be spending time on that at all.

“I’ll say this about Charlie Baker and the NCAA, they are focusing on other matters, as well,” Dellenger said. “They put out this proposal that modernizes and creates a new model, it’s just not a model that the SEC and the Big Ten and a lot of others, I think, at the Power 5 level, believe is a long-term solution.”