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Posted on 03/06/2026 8:37:34 PM PST by sopo
WASHINGTON -- After a plea for help from the highest levels of college athletics, President Donald Trump on Friday said he will write an executive order within a week that will "solve all of the problems" brought forth in an unprecedented meeting at the White House to address the future of college sports.
Trump, who was joined in the East Room by about 50 people from varied backgrounds, hosted the first "Saving College Sports" roundtable with vice chairs Secretary of State Marco Rubio, New York Yankees president Randy Levine and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The group included other politicians, sports celebrities, media executives, conference commissioners, and university presidents, chancellors and athletic directors. Those who spoke delivered a similar message: College sports needs federal legislation to restore order in the NIL space and its overall economics.
"I will have an executive order within one week, and it will be very all-encompassing," Trump said. "And we're going to put it forward, and we're going to get sued, and we're going to see how it plays, OK, but I'll have an executive order, which will solve every problem in this room, every conceivable problem, within one week, and we'll put it forward. We will get sued. That's the only thing I know for sure."
The Trump administration’s "Saving College Sports" roundtable, hosted in the East Room of the White House, brought together leaders from the major conferences, media executives and former coaches, among others. Notably absent were any student-athletes. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images NCAA president Charlie Baker was in attendance, along with ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, American Conference commissioner Tim Pernetti and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua.
The meeting was scheduled for an hour but lasted almost two, and reporters in attendance were allowed to stand in the back of the room for the duration. Former Alabama coach Nick Saban, sitting two seats to the left of the president, was the first to speak for the college space.
Saban said his goal was to help prepare players for success in life and create an environment that would help them through personal development and academic support -- and that became "impossible to do in this system."
"I think we need to come up with a system, and we obviously have to do with the president's leadership and also Congress, probably, whether it's antitrust legislation or whatever it is, to allow student-athletes in all sports, including women's and Olympic sports, to enhance their quality of life while going to college," Saban said, "but still provide opportunity to advance themselves beyond their athletic career, which is what the philosophy of college athletics and getting a college education has always been about. And how much does anybody talk about getting an education anymore? Nobody talks about it at all, which is the most important thing any of these student-athletes can do in terms of enhancing the future."
Former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said part of the solution is to "get rid of the collectives."
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NCAA prez urges Congress to act on college sports "That's cheating," he said. "Donors put money in a pot. It's distributed to the players through coaches and managers. That's not allowed. Not supposed to do that. That's pay-for-play."
Lawmakers and others in the room rallied around hope that the SCORE Act, Congress' leading Republican-backed effort to create a national NIL and college athletics regulatory structure, will pass. Sen. Ted Cruz said 60 Senate votes are needed, including seven Democrats, but he added that zero Democrats are ready to vote for it.
Texas Tech billionaire booster Cody Campbell, who has been working on the issue for months, cautioned that as it moves into the Senate, "certain dynamics are going to change."
"Many of the agendas in this room and outside this room are going to become impossible," he said. "The reality is nobody's going to get everything. If we're going to come to a solution on this, we have to find a place where we're all equally unhappy, just like any other business deal."
Phillips told the president, "We need your help," and said none of the commissioners in the room has been told by any players that they want to be considered employees.
"They're smart enough to understand what that means," Phillips said.
Sankey also expressed a sense of urgency.
"We'll fracture more if we fail to act," he said.
"I will have an executive order within one week, and it will be very all-encompassing. And we're going to put it forward, and we're going to get sued, and we're going to see how it plays, okay, but I'll have an executive order which will solve every problem in this room, every conceivable problem, within one week, and we'll put it forward. We will get sued. That's the only thing I know for sure." President Donald Trump Sarah Hirshland, CEO of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said the college feeder system has "been the backbone of Team USA for generations."
In the Paris Games, she said, athletes represented 231 different colleges and 71 conferences, and 90 different schools were represented by medalists. She cautioned not to take those sports at the collegiate level for granted.
"And while the United States has topped the gold medal table in eight of the last 10 Summer Games, I am here to tell you the margin is narrowing," she said. "Around the world, nations are investing aggressively in sports, building centralized training systems, expanding funding and prioritizing athlete development in new ways. That growing global competition comes at a moment when U.S. colleges must increase their investments in football to stay competitive. The economic pressures are unsustainable. ...
"We know what happens when those investments are reduced or disappear," she said. "It hinders the future pipeline of Team USA, but frankly, it threatens the future health of sport in our country. We cannot wait for the economic pressure to create this crisis."
Notably absent were any student-athletes.
"They're very well-represented," Trump said. "You know why? Because people like Nick Saban and Urban Meyer, all of the people that I know in the room -- and the people probably I don't know -- they all care very much about the student-athlete more so than they care about themselves, so I think they're really here. In that sense, they're represented very well here."
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yeh, sorry
Probably framed as an equal rights issue on some level.
I’m guessing people are seeing that if the likes of ESPN and Athletic Directors of a couple College Conferences run the entire college/University with the focus on their football programs only, that business model is great for the NFL, but probably not for the higher education system of the USA.
Within a decade, most colleges will eliminate sports entirely while a select few will grab the money and eliminate that pesky education thing.
Are you saying this is a bad thing? I don’t see a downside to it at all.
15 and 16 year olds are not adults. Need I tell you?
They can work at McDonalds, so why shouldn’t they work at their sport. High school isn’t quite the money factory college sports is (except football in Texas maybe, have you look at some of those stadiums). But college sports is a multibillion dollar industry, and the idea that the people at the most risk of life altering injuries in that industry shouldn’t get paid because... well frankly stupid reasons is evil.
So? They can still “work” and get paid for it. So what’s the difference between a 15 year old high school running back and an 18 year old college running back?
Money, money, money. The more there is to pass around, the more screwed up things become. Jim Thorp lost his Olympic medals over a couple of dollars for Sumer time baseball. Today, they’re are college players getting paid 10s of thousands per game. Money, money, money.
Ironically, conservatives dominate the fanbase of collegiate athletics.
For a couple dozen schools. For the hundreds of other colleges, it an expense.
In a few years if nothing changes, those few dozen schools will just be minor league affiliates of the pros who will be front men for the gambling apps where the big bucks will be made.
It’s a multibillion dollar industry. Those “few dozen” schools (more like 60 to 100 depending the sport) have been “minor league affiliates” of the pros for decades.
The simple fact of the matter is that the MINUTE coaches started getting paid millions the idea that college sports were amateur became a bald faced lie. And not paying the athlete that are playing in a PROFESSIONAL sport, where the coach gets millions, is evil.
The first President to intervene in college sports was Teddy Roosevelt.
Football players were getting killed on the field courtesy of the flying wedge. TR said that unless college football changed its rules to make the game less lethal he was going to outlaw the sport.
The NCAA or whatever controlling authority existed at the time heeded his warning. One result was the invention of the forward pass.
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