Greg Sankey is arguably the most powerful man in college sports, and when he speaks, the entire landscape shifts. Just look at how the playoff in football happened.
If you’re a fan who is sick of the "free agent" era, where players suit up for five schools in four years, and money is the only deciding factor, Sankey’s latest move is exactly what you’ve been waiting for. During a women's basketball broadcast last Thursday, the Commissioner laid out his vision for a total reset of the transfer system.
The case for one-time transfers
Sankey's plan is simple but revolutionary in today’s climate: a return to the one-time transfer exception.
“My advocacy would be, hey, we should be back to some type of one-time transfer exception,” Sankey said. “But we have to support educational continuity if we truly believe that academics is the heart of what we do. And I’m a true believer in that.”
Legendary broadcaster Dick Vitale didn’t mince words in his support, taking to X to say, "I say AMEN to @GregSankey proposal."
That's two powerful voices saying they have seen enough.
Protecting the high school pipeline
The Commissioner also expressed deep concern about the "aging out" of high school recruits. With 26- to 28-year-olds remaining in college athletics for extended periods due to professional-to-college loopholes (like the recent Charles Bediako case), the opportunities for 18-year-old high schoolers are shrinking.
“This notion that we have 26, 27, 28-year-olds now playing against 19 and 20-year-olds, that means there’s fewer opportunities to move from high school into college athletics,” Sankey explained. “That’s not who we’ve been. That’s not who we should be.”
And he is right. If you were a coach and you wanted to win, who would you recruit?
Player A- 25 years old, played against grown men, has elite talent that has been developed
Player B- 18 years old, played high school ball, and is still developing his elite talent
You take player A every time.
A call for national standards
Sankey believes it is time to move past the "case-by-case" chaos and return to a set of national eligibility standards that everyone understands. He signaled that SEC presidents and chancellors are ready to lead that charge, potentially with the NCAA's help, or without it.
“I think we’re ready to do that at the presidential level,” Sankey said. “The NCAA can do that with kind of some new thinking and new rationale.”
The system, as it stands, is broken. While some analysts argue for total freedom, Greg Sankey is throwing his weight around to ensure that the "student" part of student-athlete doesn't disappear entirely.