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College football, and college sports in general, has found itself in quite a bit of turmoil due to recent changes in several policies.
These changes have led to situations such as that occurring at the University of Tennessee, which is currently under NCAA investigation for potential NIL violations in multiple sports.
The NCAA is also the subject of an antitrust lawsuit filed in Virginia and Tennessee as a result of the organization’s investigation of the Tennessee Volunteers football program and related NIL collectives.
They have also resulted in a landmark ruling by the National Labor Relations Board which determined that Dartmouth College basketball players are actually employees of the school.
In other words, things are a bit of a mess right now, especially in college football.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, who has had as much to do with these changes as anyone, realizes this as realignment, networks repackaging themselves and other new concerns colleges have never had to deal with before are popping up left and right.
“Just look at the last 24 hours, I’d say everything causes issues,” Sankey said during a recent appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show. “You have an announcement among three media entities about a new streaming service. You have the situation at Dartmouth, its release. You have other court filings, you have this decision about the temporary restraining order not being granted in a particular matter involving the Tennessee and Virginia attorneys general.
“That used to be like six months worth of news and college sports that’s all compressed into 24 hours and that’s just the cycle we work on.”
Things have gotten so out of hand that St. John’s basketball coach Rick Pitino suggested implementing a salary cap in college basketball this week.
“I’m really one who thinks it’s important to look, given the environment we’re in, on big issues facing college sports, not cases,” Sankey continued. “And my hope would be from a policymaking standpoint, at the national level, we could do that. We’ve got a lot ahead of us. We have a lot ahead of us in courts. A lot ahead of us in states and Congress and I would like not to be in this circumstance. But certainly, attorneys general have the right to bring this.
“It will be decided, these things are going to be argued out, and we’ll see the outcome and then how we move forward from this particular matter.”
What that outcome will look like when all is said and done is a mystery to everyone right now.