Greg Sankey reacts to report of President Donald Trump NIL executive order

Greg Sankey reacted to the latest report surrounding President Donald Trump reportedly set to sign an executive order to establish national standards for NIL in college athletics. The SEC commissioner admitted he didn’t have any additional inside information. What Sankey did offer Wednesday morning is that President Trump’s support is real and congressional activities in general are still a priority for college athletics figureheads. 

“I don’t think that’s a terribly articulate tweet,” Sankey said on SEC This Morning, referencing the originally tweeted report by CBS News. “The NCAA doesn’t have a name, image, and likeness plan specifically. I mean, in college athletics, we have something, so the attribution is an error. The President clearly has an interest in sports, big picture, has an interest in college sports. has been at our games. The notion of an executive order has been mentioned before. There were some reports of a commission or an executive order back to like, April, I think, is when that started to bubble. So we’ll wait and see.”

Sankey previously played golf with the President to discuss these issues. While it seems like there’s some progress behind the scenes, there’s nothing set in ston.

“It’s not a secret, I had a chance to visit with the President, along with Pete Bevacqua, the athletics director at Notre Dame,” Sankey said. “We met and played golf at Bedminster, and his interest is real. My takeaway, he wants to be supportive of college athletics, make sure that it’s sustainable, the Olympic program and the Olympic development.

Greg Sankey reacts to latest report of President Donald Trump, NIL

“Work that’s done on college campuses was on his mind. The support of women’s athletics was on his mind, but having some kind of real boundaries, and we’ve been in active conversations. And I talked to members of Congress yesterday as they look at a bill in the House of Representatives, went through a subcommittee markup, this is all the gobbledygook. I think those congressional activities are still a real priority for us.”

According to the CBS News report referenced by Sankey, Jennifer Jacobs and Ed O’Keefe reported “(President) Trump is engaging on an issue that has quickly reshaped and, in many ways, roiled college athletics after a House subcommittee on Tuesday advanced a bill along party lines that would establish national standards for sponsorships. The legislation, called the “SCORE Act,” would supersede a patchwork of state laws regulating Name, Image and Likeness, or NIL.”

Sankey made a point that there have been reports before, but nothing seems official to this point. But one thing’s for sure, the President will be, or attempt to be, involved in some sort of fashion.

“There have been reports about a commission, executive order before. You actually have to see if something happens, and then if something happens, what is included,” Sankey said. “I don’t have any inside information about what generated those reports late last evening.”