President Donald Trump played golf with two prominent college sports figures last weekend.
Who won the round, and what did they discuss?
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said he’ll contain the particulars to those who played in the golf group. Sankey joined Trump and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua for the round of golf. They played at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to a Yahoo! Sports report.
“It was helpful for me and for Pete, as well, to hear his thoughts and his perspectives and to share some of ours,” Sankey said Monday during a call with reporters. “I think those are best left for the moment on the golf course.”
The golf outing came amid what Sankey described as an “inflection point” moment for college sports, on the heels of a federal judge on Friday approving the House legal settlement.
The settlement allows NCAA member schools to directly compensate athletes beginning July 1 in the form of revenue-sharing for the use of the name, image and likeness of players. Previously, athletes could earn money via NIL deals with third-party individuals and groups. This settlement allows schools to bring payments to athletes in-house.
The settlement allows schools to distribute a capped financial allotment to athletes across sports. The cap is estimated to start around $20.5 million per school.
Additionally, the settlement outlines that any Division I athlete who earns an NIL deal or deals worth $600 or more must report those deals to a regulatory system called ‘NIL Go.” This centralized clearinghouse, run by Deloitte, will be tasked with determining whether those deals have a “valid business purpose” and whether the money involved in those deals falls within “a reasonable range of compensation,” whatever those terms are considered to mean.
“This (settlement) brings us to a point of having the opportunity for stability and fairness in the new system,” Sankey said Monday, “replacing what has been a chaotic number of months in a fully unregulated environment – replacing that environment with transparent and enforceable rules that promote consistent opportunities for all and are part of a judicially approved settlement.”
Sankey and other college sports leaders have lobbied for years for federal legislation to regulate the NIL marketplace and supersede the patchwork of state NIL laws. No such federal legislation has emerged.
While Sankey declined to get into the specifics of his golf course talks with Trump, he said he appreciates the president’s “interest in college sports.”
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
