Greg Sankey: 'Clear lines,' must be drawn in NIL collectives

At every chance SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has had to talk about NIL this offseason, he’s used it to plead with congress for a national law or regulation of some sort on the madness. By no means is he calling for the legislature to limit NIL deals or opportunities, but instead, he’d like to see a blanket standard nationally rather than this Tower-of-Babel situation where all 50 states enforce a different set of rules. Sankey wants national leadership making these decision rather than leaving it in the hands of various state representatives.

Recently, at the Texas High School Coaches Convention, Sankey was asked about the discussions he’s had this summer with the SEC’s coaches and players when it comes to NIL. Of course, he once again used the opportunity to explain why a national set of rules is necessary, noting that he has the leaders of the conference on board as well as some of the athletes. However, this time around, he emphasized the need to separate recruiting from the NIL world.

“One of the themes was… we have to draw a line between boosters and recruiting and collectives and recruiting,” answered Sankey. “That’s been a thing since the beginning.”

Sankey continued, explaining the woes of state-by-state NIL rules while noting that he still wants to see NIL prosper.

“Understand — an extension the earlier question — my observation, our, I think, college athletics observation was not to just stop NIL in 2019. But the worst way to do it is on a state-by-state basis.

“I think it was accurate — again, go back to our young people, saying it has to be a better way for you to help us. We have to draw clear lines. And part of the challenge around boosters and recruiting activity is those lines should have still been cleared but they’ve been blurred.”

The SEC commish thinks, so far when it comes to NIL, there’s been a lot of shady dealings that have often come to harm the student-athlete.

“There also is an expectation up front that would be clear, transparent, actual Name, Image and Likeness economic activity taking place. I think there are questions have to be answered about what’s true and what’s not true in any of these relationships.”

The one truth with college sports and NIL deals seems to be that nobody really seems to know what’s going on or which numbers and agreements are real vs. not. The fans definitely have no idea, the coaches have often come out and said they’re lost in the woods on the issue, and even a number of players have complained about empty promises from schools or collectives throughout the country.

The NIL situation sure is a mess right now and Greg Sankey is calling for Washington to break out the mop.