Sankey: ‘Only Congress’ can deal with NIL concerns

• Heather Dinich, ESPN

  • Senior WriterJul 17, 2023, 02:27 PM ET Close College football reporter
  • Joined ESPN.com in 2007
  • Graduate of Indiana University

NASHVILLE, Tenn.– SEC commissioner Greg Sankey on Monday stated there is an “urgent requirement” for Congress to enact a nationwide standard for name, image and likeness and he was emphatic in his belief that “only Congress can adequately solve these concerns.”

Sankey, speaking onstage to a ballroom filled with reporters collected at the Grand Hyatt for the league’s yearly media days, used the bulk of his time at the lectern repeating a message he had actually personally provided last month to congress members in Washington.

“The reality is, just Congress can fully deal with the challenges dealing with college sports,” he stated. “The NCAA can not fix all of these problems, the courts can not solve all of these problems. The states can not fix all of these issues, nor can the conferences. Whether congressional action is possible is a matter of dispute. Much dispute.

“But academic opportunity, supporting fair chances for guys and for women, guaranteeing the United States’ ongoing success in the Olympic Games, offering healthcare, nutritional assistance, academic support, mental wellness therapy,” he stated, “these are nonpartisan problems that deserve a nonpartisan solution.”

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Sankey said that “to our understanding,”no state has acted to impose its own NIL laws. The individual states are likewise avoiding the NCAA and conferences from embracing and implementing reasonable NIL requirements, according to Sankey. He stated that while NIL has been “a net positive for young people,” there are also stories of how it has actually been misused.

“Some stories informed and others not informed of pledges made but not satisfied, of incentives offered however not provided, of empty commitments, and NIL arrangements that produced more questions than offered answers and other behaviors in this area that appropriately triggered issue,” he said. “The truth is our student-athletes should have something better than a patchwork of state laws that support their name, image and likeness activities if assistance is the right word.”

Sankey stated future college athletes deserve more than “the need to arrange through a complete unregulated market, being approached by people who provide themselves as something that they might not be, where anybody can acquire card stock and run it through a printer and call themselves an agent on an organization card.”

Sankey said the players he has actually spoken to throughout the SEC continue to ask for uniformity in NIL policies across the nation, which he has yet to have a discussion with an athlete who says they wish to be considered a staff member of a school or conference.

“Our student-athletes want to know their rivals on the opposite line of skirmish go through and governed by the same guidelines and policies by which they are governed,” Sankey said.Sankey stated leaders throughout college sports have actually talked about some level of representative registration, along with a better definition of just what NIL is and agreement of the language to explain the activity.While the bulk of his remarks focused on NIL, Sankey

likewise revealed that the conference’s media days will be kept in Dallas next summertime, a modification that lines up with the arrival of Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC. From 1985 to 2017, the SEC held its occasion in the Birmingham, Alabama, location, but more recently it has two times(2018 and 2022 )ventured into Atlanta. This is the first time the event has been kept in Nashville.The SEC will become a 16-team conference in 2024, and Sankey was inquired about the league possibly getting even bigger.”I

‘ve watched others message about,’We’re not done yet, ‘”he stated.” I just don’t think that’s healthy. People can criticize me and say,’Wow, you actually sprung it on people in ’21,’which we did, and maybe there’s no tidy and perfect way to deal with conference membership. It’s not been a subject in the Southeastern Conference besides offering updates so we’re extremely mindful to what’s occurring around us. “Do I believe it’s done?”he said.”People will state I get to choose that. Right now it appears others are going to decide that prior to we have to make any decisions. My view is we know who we are, we’re comfy as a league. … You go larger, there are an entire other set of elements that have to be considered with that. I’m uncertain I have actually seen those teased out aside from when my mind played out.”