Emmert on NCAA’s NIL Wild West: “A Real Short Window”
Emmert said, among other things, that the NCAA “has a real short window” for the organization to implement massive changes, according to a report from SI.com’s Pat Forde.
Below is an excerpt from Forde’s report on Emmert’s statement regarding NIL overhaul.
After dragging its feet on player compensation, the new NIL Era is a free-for-all in need of defining and refining. After decades of failing to enforce rules that were being broken with impunity, and then failing to quickly prosecute the scofflaws that it could catch, Washington politicians are preparing legislation to completely overhaul NCAA enforcement. After decades of a widening gulf between the most athletically powerful schools and everyone else, the scramble is on to custom-fit bylaws to those varying levels of competition.
“We’ve got a real short window,” Emmert says of the time for the NCAA to implement massive changes.
How short? Some big answers are expected as soon as Aug. 1. That’s when the NCAA’s Transformation Committee, co-chaired by Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey and Ohio University athletic director Julie Cromer, is expected to deliver a set of recommended changes. The early advertising on those changes is that they won’t be subtle.
“It is upon us,” Cromer said Thursday. “We received this board charge to be transformative. And in fairness, we went back to them and asked them a second time, ‘Is that really what you mean? You really mean transformation with a capital T?’ We feel confident that charge was verified.”
The committee’s work to date was first focused on infractions and enforcement, namely rules modernization. That would include a quicker pace of resolution for infractions cases, and a general desire to stop majoring in minors. “We’re really good at making rules,” Sankey said. “We’re not as good at deleting rules.”
From there, Cromer said the next step is investments to support athletes. We’ll see what they come back with—and what Congress continues to come up with in the meantime.
To read the full report from SI.com, click here.
