Greg Sankey stresses importance of national standard in NIL

Legislations regarding NIL remain a very hot topic around college athletics. That’s because, although they’ve been in effect for some time now, there are no overarching rules for all athletes. With it being one of the main issues routinely hitting his desk, all SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey asks for at this point is the uniformity everyone wants to see so desperately.

When asked about NIL, Sankey shared the overall impact it’s having on all his sports. He said it’s becoming more divided with it being a state-by-state issue. The solution now lies with Congress and them finding a way to put everything under one umbrella.

“Candidly, under name, image and likeness, that’s affecting every sport that we have. There are healthy opportunities present, but over and over what we’re hearing is not name, image and likeness. What we’re hearing is states that have laws not enforcing the laws they have. Or deciding, really for competitive purposes, to back off of those laws,” said Sankey. “That is why, even though there’s great difficulty in trying to achieve a federal solution with Congress, and we have a changing Congress, the need for a national standard remains.”

At the end of the day, this isn’t about making life easier for conference commissioners like Sankey. This is about simplifying a system that’s supposed to benefit the student-athletes. Sankey says that’s the only thing they want to see moving forward so that NIL can truly be what they intended it to be.

“Over and over, their ask of me is for a uniform standard,” Sankey said. “That’s not a late ’50s conference commissioner trying to identify concerns and problems. That is the young people affected by the name, image, and likeness asking for uniformity.”

The NCAA is about a year and a half into the NIL era. While its monetary impact has been felt, that doesn’t mean we still don’t have a ways to go in reforming it. The stability of it on a national level continues to be the top concern of everyone across college sports and, until we see the rectification of that, that will not change, whether we’re talking about commissioners, coaches, or the athletes themselves.