The commissioners of college football’s Power Four conferences have overtaken the NCAA as the driving force behind the future of collegiate athletics.

Over the last several year, collegiate athletics have undergone a period of radical change which have shaped both the present and future of our major sports as we know it.

From NIL being used as a recruiting tool to the chaos of the transfer portal — and the two working hand-in-hand — there’s been no shortage of headlines. But arguably the most impactful change has been the one flying under the radar: A dramatic shift in power.

Prior to roughly the past five years, the NCAA as an organization wielded all power as judge, jury, and executioner when it came to college sports.

Now however, the current state things are in has effectively rendered them powerless when it comes to enforcing any sort of rules as they have lost in just about every litigation situation.

The most powerful men in college athletics in 2025, the ones who will shape the future, are the commissioners of the power-four conferences.

All four commissioners — Greg Sankey of the SEC, Tony Petitti of the Big 10, Jim Phillips of the ACC, and Brett Yormark of the Big 12 — appeared together on a recent episode of the Ruthless Podcast and addressed the fact that they are now the ones running the show:

An expert question from @HolmesJosh to the Power Four Commissioners @GregSankey, @BigTen, @theACC and @Big12Conference — who explain why they’re spearheading NIL instead of the NCAA. Hear what needs to be done by Congress to support student-athletes.

Full interview on YT – link… pic.twitter.com/MBc46Y3vIa

— Ruthless Podcast (@RuthlessPodcast) April 15, 2025

“We’re not adversarial at all, I think we are respectful of change and that’s hard at a national level,” Sankey said.

“The NCAA has not made all the right decisions, but we’re part of the NCAA,” Phillips said. “We’ve been responsible in some of those decisions that have not gone well…[President Charlie Baker] has done a really good job of staying connected with us and we meet with him regularly, and in the end I think the four of us with the brands that we have, the schools, the market, that we have a responsibility to the greater good of college football.”

How things are going to turn out over the next couple of years remains to be seen, but unquestionably Sankey and the rest of the power-four commissioners are going to be spearheading whatever further changes are made.