With all eyes on SEC, Greg Sankey falls in line with NCAA's NIL narrative

Greg Sankey could have taken the lead on bringing change to the NIL Era.

The Southeastern Conference has become a “super conference” with the expansion to 16 teams just a year away. An SEC school has won the national title four consecutive years. Sankey is the most powerful man in college athletics.

So, with the NCAA hopelessly begging Capitol Hill for assistance in regulating NIL – a Congressional bill has yet to make it to a vote – his State of the SEC speech Monday at SEC media days in Nashville could have been the stage to unveil a pathway forward.

• Actually including athletes in the conversation.

• Calling on Charlie Baker and the NCAA to exhaust enforcement efforts before turning to lawmakers.

• Maybe even a plan for revenue sharing.

Nope.

Instead, Sankey chose to fall in line with the NCAA. He mentioned Baker within the first 15 minutes of his nearly 50-minute speech. He called for Congress to act, bemoaning the recent wave of state laws and stating athletes, “deserve better than a race to the bottom at the state legislature level.” It struck a very similar tone to Baker at last month’s Future of College Sports summit, who described state laws as blatantly saying, “Screw the conference. Screw their rules.”

Examining the NCAA’s aggressive push for federal NIL laws

Over the past month, notable athletic directors including North Carolina‘s Bubba Cunningham and Oklahoma‘s Joe Castiglione have spoken on the need for the NCAA to concoct another plan that doesn’t include Congress.

Apparently, Sankey does not have one yet. Just over a month after the commissioner and representatives from 14 SEC schools spent time in Washington, D.C., meeting with elected officials pushing the NCAA’s agenda, he still is placing false hope with lawmakers.

Baker has said he would like to see movement on a bill by this fall, while Florida Rep. Gus Bilirakis is planning for another legislative hearing. Meanwhile, Sankey has toyed with the idea of aligning state laws in the SEC footprint, which he admitted Monday in Nashville is a long shot. He even slipped where he places his odds of Congress delivering emergency relief to the NCAA.

“The reality is only Congress can fully address the challenges facing college athletics,” said the commissioner, who is now in his eighth year. “The NCAA cannot fix all of these issues. The courts cannot resolve all of these issues. The states cannot resolve all of these issues. Nor can the conferences. Whether Congressional action is achievable is a matter of debate. Much debate.”

NIL has obviously done good for athletes. For the first time in NCAA history, they can make a dollar for all the revenue they generate for institutions. Inducements in recruiting and the transfer portal have increased, with more dollars being spent with the rise of NIL collectives. There are plenty of those stories, highlighted by Jaden Rashada‘s broken $13.85 million deal at Florida.

Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma all have enacted laws in recent weeks barring the NCAA and conferences from taking action against institutions for NIL activities. Amidst his lamenting against the patchwork of state laws, Sankey repeatedly mentioned athletes deserve better. Those same bills also give athletes the chance to work more closely with their institutions, which could provide an advantage in signing more deals or compensation.

But what exactly is better?

The commissioner leaned on the need for “uniformity” in the world of college athletics and NIL. Yet, he was not pressed to share the specifics of what those standards would look like or mean for athletes. When asked, he brought up Baker’s hopes for legislation: registry of agents, transparency and communications and financial support.

The NCAA president previously mentioned his wants for a registry of NIL deals and a uniform standard contract for deals. Both have drawn pushback, as NIL partnerships include a broad range of services and deliverables. State laws include bylaws prohibiting disclosures of NIL deals to protect athletes.

Many bills that have been introduced and have garnered the NCAA’s support include stipulations like classifying athletes not as employees or granting the governing body antitrust status. Sankey may have not mentioned those, but neither would better athletes’ NIL rights.

The number of athletes who have been able to publicly, candidly share their opinions on this has been minimal. March’s legislative hearing on college athletics featured a Florida State softball player and a former Florida receiver who did not play in the NIL Era. A current Power 5 football or basketball player has yet to speak at a hearing on NIL.

Yet, according to Sankey, no athlete wants to be deemed as an employee. Instead of embracing the idea – or possibly coming up with a plan for revenue sharing – he described the model as a threat to Olympic and women’s sports.

“I have yet to have a conversation with an engaged participating student-athlete who says they want to be deemed an employee of their institution and the conference,” Sankey said at the Grand Hyatt Hotel.

The fight is coming, though. The National Labor Relations Board’s Los Angeles office filed a complaint against the NCAA, Pac-12 Conference and USC for unfair labor practices in May, and a hearing with an NLRB Administrative Law Judge is set for Nov. 7 in Los Angeles. 

It does not end there.

The plaintiffs in Johnson v. NCAA, former Villanova football player Trey Johnson and other Division I athletes, are asking that athletes be deemed employees subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Plus, while put on pause until next year, the College Athlete Protection Act would require institutions that fund major college sports to pay as much as $25,000 annually to athletes. The California bill passed the Assembly before being delayed until 2024, according to USA Today.

With TV contracts set to balloon in the next 18 months, revenue sharing without classifying athletes as employees could be an option. Sankey was not pushed on the topic nor mentioned the possibility.

The SEC commissioner does not appear to have a new plan for pushing forward NIL, despite the era now in its third year. It’s an eerily similar narrative Greg Sankey painted in Atlanta last July when he led the chorus of Power 5 commissioners pleading with Congress.

A year later, not much has changed. Athletes are still not at the table. Coaches are still frustrated. Collectives are still spending money on inducements in recruiting.

And the SEC is still putting its faith in Congress.

That’s not up for debate.