DESTIN, Fla. — There are two Greg Sankeys. The first one sometimes will say something that reminds you he was one of the people supporting the old ways and makes you wonder if someone who supported the old system can be trusted to build the new one.

The other Sankey, however, leaves hints that he does get it.

In his first public appearance since the historic NCAA vs. House settlement, on the eve of the SEC’s spring meetings, both sides of the SEC commissioner were on display. Which side wins out, and how quickly, will mean a lot.

The necessary background for those who need it: The NCAA has agreed to revenue sharing, directly paying its athletes, as part of last week’s settlement agreement. But it was merely one part of the larger whack-a-mole approach in dealing with college sports issues. The chaos of the transfer portal and NIL is left unresolved. And some stakeholders — media members, lawyers, advocates, coaches and administrators speaking privately — believe having a collective bargaining agreement with the athletes is the only way to do that.

But the first side of Sankey still sounded skeptical on Monday.

“To be in collective…

DESTIN, Fla. — The SEC convenes Tuesday for its annual spring meetings, and the good news for those involved is the future football schedule is not the main topic.

The bad news is the future football schedule is not the main topic.

Whether to go to nine conference games or stay at eight seems quaint now compared with the heavy reality that SEC presidents, athletic directors, coaches and commissioner Greg Sankey must confront this week: revenue sharing, roster limits and other results of the settlement in the House v. NCAA case.

SEC presidents voted unanimously — at least in the final vote it was unanimous — to approve the settlement terms, which if approved will result in around 22 percent of annual revenue being paid to athletes, starting next year. It’s a landmark agreement, and the timing is good for SEC administrators, who can start to hash out what comes next in Destin.

There are, of course, other things going in the conference: A quarterback at Georgia is suing Florida. Oklahoma and Texas officially join the league in July, and their coaches will be present in Destin for the first time. Nick Saban is no longer coaching football….

It could be an elevator, a hallway or a corridor this weekend at one of the Final Fours, the men’s in Arizona or the women’s in Cleveland. Greg Sankey, commissioner of the SEC, has a team in each, so doubtless he will be at both. Len Perna, meanwhile, has an idea, and if he sees Sankey he may do everything in his power to get a minute.

At most, Sankey will smile politely, nod and keep the conversation short. For now, the chances of Sankey and his conference wanting any part of Perna’s idea are about as good as the SEC giving up football as a varsity sport.

Because that’s essentially what it would be doing here.

The notion of a college football “Super League” has been percolating for a while, and one idea finally went public on Wednesday, when The Athletic reported that a number of power brokers, including the presidents at Syracuse and West Virginia and Perna, the CEO of TurnkeyZRG, were pushing for a 70-team permanent group, employing athletes as players, making its own rules and leaving non-football sports to the existing conferences, as is.

Publicly, the reaction among SEC power brokers was crickets: Sankey and the presidents at…

The full NCAA Tournament bracket has been released with UConn leading the way as No. 1 overall.

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

Eight double-digit seeds secured first-round upsets in the NCAA Tournament to bust brackets across the country. But when the dust settled on the opening weekend, only one double-digit seed was left standing in the Sweet 16: No. 11 NC State in the South Region.

Despite a season filled with so many evenly-matched teams, every No. 1 and No. 2 seed is still alive in the Sweet 16 for the first time in five years and just the fifth time since the NCAA Tournament began seeding in 1979. Of the 16 games involving one or two seeds, only three were decided by single digits.

With the Sweet 16 upon us, here are our latest NCAA Tournament power rankings for all 16 remaining national title contenders. Consider this our re-seeding of the Sweet 16, if you wish. We will update this ranking after every round and until the Final Four begins. Many of the top-seeded teams have looked dominant. Which one is in the best position to make a run at the championship? Here’s a look at where things stand:

The full NCAA Tournament bracket has been released with UConn leading the way as No. 1 overall.

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

March Madness is upon us.

Well, technically it began during a wild conference tournament season ahead of the NCAA Tournament. But now, we get the really good stuff. The Cinderellas. The players you hadn’t heard of before this week who are now household names. The buzzer-beaters. Ultimately, though, we all want to know who will be cutting down the nets in April. And so we present: the top 16 national title contenders in our NCAA Tournament Power Rankings.

We will update this ranking after every round and until the Final Four begins. If top-seeded teams fall, others will take their place. If some lower-seeded teams look stronger than expected, they’ll move up the list.

Who’s on top to start? Of course it’s Connecticut. Here’s a look at where things stand as we enter Thursday’s first round:

A federal judge in Tennessee on Friday granted a preliminary injunction that prohibits the NCAA from enforcing its own rules against pay-for-play in recruiting. Effective immediately, name, image and likeness collectives can negotiate deals with recruits without fear of NCAA sanctions.

My first reaction to the news: This renders the entire plot of “Blue Chips” obsolete.

If you’ve never seen that classic 1994 college basketball film, here are the key details: Nick Nolte plays Pete Bell, a big-time coach (clearly modeled after Indiana’s Bob Knight) so desperate to get his struggling program back on track that he sells his soul and allows a booster to go buy some recruits. Stud center Neon Boudeaux (played by Shaquille O’Neal) gets a new car. The mother of Butch McCrae (Penny Hardaway) gets a house. And a big ol’ tractor shows up at the farm of Ricky Roe (former Indiana big man Matt Nover).

But an investigative reporter catches wind of the operation. Things don’t end well for coach Bell.

GO DEEPER

Federal judge blocks NCAA from enforcing NIL rules

I bring this up because in 1994, even a non-basketball fan walking into their local cinema would be aware that paying high school recruits was a cardinal sin. This assumption was so ingrained in the public that an entire film…

The SEC is closing in on being a billion-dollar conference: Revenues continued to go up in the most recent fiscal year and are expected to keep climbing amid a new TV deal, College Football Playoff expansion and the addition of Texas and Oklahoma.

The SEC announced Thursday that it distributed $741 million to its 14 schools in the 2022-23 fiscal year, meaning an average payout of $51.2 million. That’s up from the average payout of $49.9 million during the previous fiscal year.

That revenue comes mainly from television deals (CBS and ESPN up until this year),  football bowl games, the Playoff, the SEC Championship Game, the SEC men’s basketball tournament and NCAA championships.

The current fiscal year largely will feature the same sources of revenue, so the average payout may only go up slightly. But starting with the 2024-25 fiscal year, the new TV deal with ESPN will kick in, and it’s expected to be worth around $811 million. There will be the 12-team Playoff, which will pay out more in television and other revenue to all conferences. And the addition of the Longhorns and Sooners should help attendance and other revenue.

The SEC still would be short of the Big Ten, with its new $1.1 billion TV deal and addition of four schools (USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington). But the…

College softball is back. The season begins Thursday with a flurry of preseason tournaments, including the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge kicking everything off with a matchup between reigning champion Oklahoma and Utah Valley at 11:30 a.m. ET.

It all leads up to the Women’s College World Series, which begins May 30 and features the eight top teams in Oklahoma City. The final two will play a best-of-three series, with the national champion crowned on June 6 or June 7.

Before the action begins, here’s The Athletic’s preseason college softball top 25. Final 2023 rankings are based on the ESPN.com/USA Softball Top 25.

1. Oklahoma (2023 final rank: No. 1)

The Sooners are vying for their fourth consecutive national championship — and they’re well-equipped to do it. Oklahoma returns four first-team All-Big 12 selections from last season: INF Tiare Jennings, P Nicole May, C Kinzie Hansen and INF Jayda Coleman, the reigning conference player of the year. Though ace Jordy Bahl transferred to Nebraska, coach Patty Gasso struck gold in the transfer portal with the addition of Kelly Maxwell, a former Oklahoma State pitcher who led the Cowgirls to three consecutive WCWS appearances and shared 2022 Big 12 pitcher of the year honors with Bahl.

2. Stanford (No. 3)

The Cardinal are…

You’ve seen the three letters: NIL.

You’ve heard the buzz these three letters have caused around college sports, read headlines about universities filing lawsuits against the NCAA on the issue and watched commercials of athletes like LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne tumbling while wearing Vuori joggers or USC quarterback Caleb Williams drinking Dr. Pepper.

But what does NIL — “name, image and likeness” — encompass, and why is the line between what’s within the rules and what isn’t so difficult to discern?

Here’s a breakdown of the acronym that has changed college sports:

What is NIL? How’d we get to this point in college sports?

NIL stands for “name, image and likeness” and has become the universal shorthand for college athletes’ ability to become paid endorsers and monetize their success outside of their school-funded scholarships and benefits. Before July 1, 2021, college athletes were not permitted to receive profits from their name, image and likeness. Since then … a lot has happened.

That summer, in response to pressure from laws passed by state legislatures that permitted varying levels of NIL activity, the NCAA created an interim NIL policy: For schools in states with laws on the books, the state law would guide them; otherwise, schools could set their…

The retired professor set his laptop aside and reached for the remote. For more than an hour, Chris Pionke had paid little attention to the NFL game on the television in front of him. The teams moved back and forth across the screen and the announcers provided analysis, but Pionke was scrolling mindlessly on his laptop. That changed when he heard the name.

Josh Dobbs.

Pionke, who taught engineering at the University of Tennessee for nearly three decades, perked up and increased the volume. He wondered if the announcers were just mentioning the former Volunteers quarterback, or if Dobbs was actually in the game. He squinted at the screen and spotted a tall, lanky, familiar-looking player wearing the No. 15 in Minnesota Vikings white and purple.

Pionke hollered to his wife who had been sitting over in the kitchen.

“Cindy!” Pionke said. “Josh is in!”

Their Knoxville, Tenn., home livened immediately with football noises. Dobbs barked the pre-snap cadence. Linemen crashed into one another. Announcers yelled, astonished at what they were watching. Pionke listened intently while Dobbs orchestrated a thriller of a victory in relief of rookie Jaren Hall despite having fewer than five days of preparation with his new team.

TOUCHDOWN VIKINGS! TOUCHDOWN VIKINGS!

JOSH DOBBS TAKE OVER…