The Power Five conference commissioners are calling on Congress to take action regarding NIL.

According to Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger, the P5 commissioners — Georgia Kliavkoff of the Pac-12, Kevin Warren of the Big Ten, Jim Phillips of the ACC, Brett Yormark of the Big 12, and Greg Sankey of the SEC — have sent a letter to Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) outlining how they believe name, image, and likeness is being abused by boosters inducing high school and transfer athletes to attend their affiliated universities with “payments inaccurately labeled as NIL.”

The letter comes in response to Tuberville and Manchin seeking feedback from stakeholders on the evolution of NIL compensation in college athletics. Earlier this month, the two senators announced a plan to draft a bill aimed at better regulating NIL.

Dellenger shared the letter to Twitter.

In it, the league commissioners detail six “pillars” that they say are integral to federal legislation:

  1. Having a national standard allowing all athletes to earn compensation from third parties
  2. Prohibiting pay-for-play as well as outlawing booster involvement in recruiting
  3. Providing protections for athletes, including assurances that agents “are subject to meaningful regulation”
  4. Banning third parties or agents from obtaining “long-term rights” of an athlete’s NIL
  5. Requiring deals to commensurate with market rates for NIL activity
  6. Requiring athletes to disclose NIL deals to their university

Since 2019, at least eight federal NIL bills have been filed, including proposals from Democrat Sens. Chris Murphy, Cory Booker, and Richard Blumenthal, as well as Republican Sens. Jerry Moran and Roger Wicker. None have been able to gain enough support in either the House or the Senate to move through either body.

“The pace of change in college athletics today is swift, and we realize some members of Congress want to address issues beyond NIL,” the letter reads. “We are ready to engage in those conversations, including the need to preserve the advantages college athletes enjoy as students instead of being in the different role of employees. But with one year of NIL behind us, and both its peril and promise obvious, and its impact on recruiting undeniable, we believe creating a fair and enforceable framework for true NIL is a good, and needed, step we should take right now.”

At Pac-12 Media Day in July, Kliavkoff said he felt college athletics has collectively lost sight of the student-athlete.

“I believe it is time for the 10 FBS conferences to step in and agree to NIL legislation and a strong, effective and expeditious enforcement mechanism. All 10 conferences are strongly in favor of student-athletes being able to benefit from their NIL,” he said at the time. “But we also need three simple and obvious guardrails. NIL should not be used as an inducement. NIL should not be used as pay-for-play. And the amount earned as NIL payments should be commensurate with what the NIL provided and not a veiled inducement or pay-for-play. These are current NCAA rules that the NCAA has unfortunately chosen not to enforce in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Alston. Recodifying and enforcing these three simple NIL rules will protect our student-athletes while still allowing them to earn.

“Second, it’s time for us to consider steps we can take to fairly recognize our student-athletes’ contributions and more appropriately allocate the resources created through athletics without fundamentally changing the role of our educational institutions. While I do not believe that our student-athletes should be treated as employees, we must recognize and meaningfully address the extraordinary ways in which they contribute to our athletic programs, campuses, and communities.”

Kliavkoff said he believes the threat of anti-trust lawsuits is the reason why the current NCAA rules are not being enforced.