SEC, Big Ten form joint advisory group to 'address significant challenges' facing NCAA sports

As the landscape of college sports has undergone a seismic transformation the past several years, two conferences have emerged above their counterparts when it comes to resources, prestige and power — the SEC and the Big Ten.

Now, those two normally oppositional sides are joining forces.

On Friday, the conferences announced the formation of a joint advisory group to “address the significant challenges facing college athletics and the opportunities for betterment of the student-athlete experience.”

The advisory group will be made up of university presidents, chancellors and athletic directors from the two leagues. The exact composition of the group has yet to be determined, but it will engage with those outside of the group, including athletes and “other key leadership groups from within both conferences.”

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It will serve as a consulting arm of the two conferences and will have no authority to act independently of the NCAA.

In a news release, the SEC said the leagues were compelled to form the group after “recent court decisions, pending litigation, a patchwork of state laws and complex governance proposals.”

The creation of the group comes at a time of massive change throughout college sports, primarily with the advent of rules that allow athletes to benefit off their name, image and likeness. That went against the NCAA’s longstanding policy on amateurism, which had to be scrapped in 2021 after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in NCAA v. Alston.

Greg Sankey statement on SEC/Big Ten advisory group

"There are similar cultural and social impacts on our student-athletes, our institutions, and our communities because of the new collegiate athletics environment," SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement. "We do not have predetermined answers to the myriad questions facing us. We do not expect to agree on everything but enhancing interaction between our conferences will help to focus efforts on common sense solutions."

Tony Petitti statement on SEC/Big Ten advisory group

"The Big Ten and the SEC have substantial investment in the NCAA and there is no question that the voices of our two conferences are integral to governance and other reform efforts," Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said in a statement. "We recognize the similarity in our circumstances, as well as the urgency to address the common challenges we face."

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NCAA investigation into Tennessee football NIL

The formation of the group comes only three days after news broke about an NCAA investigation into Tennessee for potential rules violations involving name, image and likeness benefits for athletes in multiple sports, including football.

While Tennessee’s predicament likely isn’t the only litigation the newly formed group had in mind when addressing the challenges schools face in navigating the impact of NIL rules, the timing of it is certainly notable.

One part of the NCAA’s case revolves around a flight Vols quarterback Nico Iamaleava took to Knoxville while still a high-school student in California. Iamaleava flew as a client of Spyre Sports Group, a Knoxville-based collective that signed Iamaleava to an NIL deal in 2022 while he was still a junior in high school. A five-star recruit rated as the No. 2 quarterback nationally in the 2023 class, Iamaleava committed to the Vols on March 21, 2022.

Tennessee has responded by saying that the school can’t be held responsible for the actions of an unaffiliated party that is legally permitted to sign athletes to the kind of deals that Iamaleava inked with Spyre.

Speaking on behalf of Spyre on Tuesday, attorney Tom Mars said the collective is "independent of the University of Tennessee or anyone in its athletics program.” Tennessee chancellor Donde Plowman presented a similar argument.

"It is intellectually dishonest for the NCAA staff to issue guidelines that say a third-party collective/business may meet with prospective student-athletes, discuss NIL, even enter into a contract with prospective student-athletes, but at the same time say that the collective may not engage in conversations that would be of a recruiting nature," she said in an email obtained by Knox News.

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Tennessee attorney general NCAA lawsuit

On Wednesday, one day after news of the NCAA investigation into the Vols became public, Tennessee attorney general Jonathan Skrmetti filed a lawsuit against the NCAA over its “NIL-recruiting ban” that cited the probe into Tennessee as an "unlawful restriction" of the organization’s NIL policy.

The lawsuit was filed in the Eastern District of Tennessee federal court.

“Student-athletes are entitled to rules that are clear and rules that are fair,” Skrmetti said in a statement to Knox News. “… The NCAA’s restraints on prospective students’ ability to meaningfully negotiate NIL deals violate federal antitrust law. Only Congress has the power to impose such limits.”

Jackson Lampley declaration

Skrmetti won’t be acting alone in his ongoing litigation. On Thursday, Tennessee football player Jackson Lampley filed a declaration in the state’s lawsuit against the NCAA.

Lampley, a redshirt senior offensive lineman, filed a six-page statement in the Eastern District of Tennessee federal court. In it, Lampley details his experience as a college athlete while indicating his willingness to testify in the lawsuit if called upon to do so.

“Almost every recruit I meet with asks first and foremost about NIL. But they also ask about all the same factors I considered in the pre-NIL world," Lampley said in the court filing. "Just like finances are a factor for every other college student's decision for where to enroll, how much weight a recruit puts on financial costs and opportunities ought to be up to them, as simply part of finding the right fit for a given athlete's circumstances. In my observation, NIL has become one of the top factors that current recruits consider when determining where to go to school.”

Lampley’s father, Brad, is a former Vols offensive lineman who is now an attorney in Nashville.

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Danny White statement on NCAA

In a blistering statement released Thursday, Tennessee athletic director Danny White came after the NCAA for the purportedly tight-lipped organization leaking its investigation to the media.

“The NCAA generally does not comment on infractions cases because there is a rule against it; however, that has not stopped them in the past from leaking information to the media as they did this week about us,” White said in a statement posted to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Their actions made this ill-conceived investigation public and forced us to defend ourselves. It is clear that the NCAA staff does not understand what is happening at the campus level all over the country in the NIL space.”

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: SEC, Big Ten form joint advisory group to address NCAA sports challenges