SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey takes bold NIL stance: "It's become nonsensical" regarding the lack of oversight and statewide enforcement

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has been outspoken about the name, image and likeness rules around college football. There has been no uniform policy regarding the deals that can take place with student-athletes and companies.

Instead of having a uniform policy across the United States, there are state-by-state rulings. While speaking at the Texas High School Coaches Association Convention, Sankey dove deeper into the issues.

"We have no (NIL) oversight," Sankey said. "We have no state enforcement. We have states that don't enforce their own laws that say the NCAA can't enforce in that state. It's becoming nonsensical." h/t 247 Sports

There seems to be a lot of issues surrounding the NIL rules and the lack of enforcement around them. In what many people dub the "wild, wild west," is there a way for this to be controlled?

Can there be a way to control the NIL rules?

The most simple way to make sure there is some order across NIL deals is to set guardrails around them.

The new name, image and likeness deals provide an additional way for student-athletes to receive revenue for their likeness.

One thing that can really give some direction would be a student-athletes union that the group would be able to maintain rights. Of course, this would be challenging and could be broken down by conference.

While making his introductory remarks for the 2023 SEC Media Days on Monday, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey spoke about his views on NIL:

"It has been a net positive for people. ... The reality is, our student-athletes deserve something better than a patchwork of state laws."

The conference wants to enact and enforce NIL policies. The NCAA wants to avoid a pay-for-play model that fans typically speculate about. Having some uniformity could be a great way for both the student-athletes and the companies to make sure deals are legitimate.

Not all student-athletes are going to have issues as some of the top athletes are going to deal with shady businesses, but other players will. Having a union-like body to represent all athletes will help this as issues like those surrounding the NCAA Football EA Sports video game could be avoided.

If there is a standard of rules for all college athletes, this would create some safety nets for the student-athletes. The NIL is a great idea, but there needs to be some rules to protect the players.