National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) President Charlie Baker insists he is “up for anything” after President Donald Trump suggested creating a commission to address the issues facing college sports.
This proposed commission would address important issues, especially the pressures that name, image, and likeness (NIL) are raising for college sports.
For his part, Charlie Baker said he welcomes any help the president could lend.
“I think the fact that there’s an interest on the executive side on this, I think it speaks to the fact that everybody is paying a lot of attention right now to what’s going on in college sports,” Baker told the Raleigh News & Observer. “There is a lot going on, that’s not all bad, and I’m up for anything that helps us get somewhere.”
“We need help from Congress,” Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark told Fox News. “From where I sit today, federal preemption, having a standardized platform that oversees and governs NIL, is critically important. Today, 34 states see it very differently, and it’s relatively unruly.”
Big Ten Conference commissioner Tony Petitti added that it is “really difficult” for college sports to address its issues nationally when the states are all making their own laws.
“Every single time someone doesn’t like a ruling, or something comes from the NCAA, we end up in litigation. Those rules then get aggregated, and we’re back to the start,” Petitti said. “We’re hopeful that the combination of what we’ve done in the settlement will give us an opportunity, with some help from Congress, to really put a system in a place that has some stability.”
There are no details about the president’s proposed commission, who might be on it, or when it might be finalized.
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