SEC commissioner Greg Sankey decries state-by-state NIL laws, calls for uniformity

There is a growing chorus of coaches and administrators across college sports clamoring for national standards in NIL practices. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has taken up his part and on Saturday said on SEC Radio Network that he thinks the current state-by-state sets of rules isn’t work.

The rules Sankey are referring to are the various state laws permitting college athletes to earn NIL money, the first of which was passed by California in 2020. As such, each state is getting to shape how their various institutions will play in the NIL space and has control over things like whether high school athletes can profit from NIL deals.

“We cannot do this on a state-by-state basis any longer,” Sankey said.

Currently, the SEC has schools in 11 different states — soon to be 12 when Oklahoma joins: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky.

The two evident solutions to create uniformity are for the NCAA to beef up enforcement and oversight on NIL or get a federal law controlling it.

While the NCAA has tried to expand NIL enforcement and oversight, the power of the organization is diminished and in any regard, a member organization of various colleges doesn’t get to supersede state laws.

As such, the NCAA has pushed the U.S. Congress for a bill to serve as an end-around on the patchwork of NIL laws. Currently, there are several competing college sports-centric bills being introduced in the House and Senate. None have managed to garner broad support so far and seem unlikely to pass any time soon.

And until a federal law comes along or college decision makers learn to care less about what the specific NIL rules are, Sankey is going to keep finding the current situation unsustainable.

Sankey joins ACC commissioner Jim Phillips in calling for NIL standards nationally

Jim Phillips and various college athletics leaders have spent months attempting to address the supposed problem of NIL-fueled roster tampering and subsequent transfers. The ACC commissioner on Wednesday laid out some things he’d like to do to level out the playing field.

Speaking with reporters at ACC spring meetings, Phillips shared a number of action items he’d like to see implemented. Some are more extreme than others.

“But, as it relates to name, image and likeness, there has to be agent registration. There has to be a standardized contract. There has to be a registry. And then four there has to be education on campus,” Phillips said. “And that should just be open, that should be — that should be available for schools to see. Each other, etc. And I think it allows at least a little bit of disclosure that we’re not seeing in that space. The standardized contract, again, just everybody fills out the same thing whether it’s a $500 name, image and likeness opportunity or a $500,000 name, image and likeness opportunity. So, that’s part of it.”

Agent registration is something the NFL and other sports have in place and would likely have broad support from decision makers. Alabama head coach Nick Saban has signaled he’d like to see agents be registered. Education on campus is also not going to be too controversial and fall to each respective school.

A registry of NIL deals, open to other schools or the public, and a standardized contract would certainly be more difficult reforms to navigate.

Phillips, along with other college leaders, has been lobbying Congress on the issue for some time now.