What does Trump's college sports executive order mean? Breaking down the impact

New York Times

2 days ago

'President Donald J. Trump Saves College Sports.' If only it was that simple.
The 176th executive order President Trump signed in the past seven months was announced Thursday with an audaciously headlined statement from the White House.
We don't know how this will play out long term. But these are the key facts surrounding the executive order and the questions that need to be answered.
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The NCAA has been under attack on numerous legal fronts for more than a decade, particularly when it comes to paying athletes. Its policy for decades was strict amateurism — any compensation athletes received beyond their scholarships would render them ineligible.
The model began cracking through a series of antitrust cases brought by former athletes, most notably Alston vs. NCAA in 2021. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that schools must be allowed to provide additional academic awards. By then, states began passing legislation allowing athletes to earn money from their name, image and likeness — i.e. endorsement deals — in direct opposition to the NCAA's longstanding ban.
On July 1, 2021, the NCAA relented and began allowing NIL payments, which touched off another antitrust case, House v. NCAA. A class of former athletes sued for back pay for missing out on NIL opportunities. The defendants agreed to a $2.8 billion settlement, part of which allows schools to pay athletes directly for the first time, up to $20.5 million. A judge approved the settlement on June 6, 2025.
But the lack of an organized NIL system has led to chaos, with boosters exploiting the lack of enforcement. And with other legal challenges forcing the NCAA to eliminate its longstanding rules about transfers, athletes now routinely hop from one school to another in search of their next payday.
Desperate for regulation, college sports leaders have been lobbying Congress for help in the form of a federal law for years, but not until recently has there been any significant movement on a bill.
The order essentially makes recommendations for how college athletic departments should operate and directs several government agencies to weigh in on issues that will shape the future of college sports. It also delivers the NCAA and conferences much of what it has been lobbying for on Capitol Hill.
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However, the order's ability to turn ideas into action is questionable.
The order:
Considering how much it falls in line with what college sports leaders have been asking for, it would be difficult to call it athlete-friendly.
Yes, it tries to protect non-revenue programs and force schools to fund a wide-range of teams for athletes to participate in college sports, but limiting compensation by regulating NIL compensation and banning pay-for-play has been at the root of problems for decades.
'Looks like an NCAA press release,' said Marc Edelman, professor of sports law at Baruch College and antitrust expert who has been a critic of NCAA policies.
Several ideas for student-athlete compensation have emerged over the years to help relegate the market, from collective bargaining agreements to defining student-athletes as university employees. Though how much athletes actually want those things is hard to say; with more than 190,000 athletes competing in Division I sports, gauging consensus is tricky.
In the short term: no.
In the long term: maybe.
The biggest possible downside of the executive order is it could create more uncertainty for college sports, creating policies that may or may not hold.
'It very much depends on how this gets enforced moving forward, and whether it gets enforced moving forward,' said Sam Ehrlich, assistant professor at Boise State's college of business and economics. 'Maybe this could just end up being just a statement that goes absolutely nowhere.'
It's not so much what an executive order can do as what it can't. It can't make a law, it can't provide an antitrust exemption and it can't override state laws. Congress can do that. And that's what college sports needs.
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Any policies that come from an executive order can either be challenged in court and reversed by the next administration, which means college sports continues to operate under a blanket of uncertainty when it comes to defining the relationship between schools and athletes.
That's exactly what college sports leaders are trying to stop.
The executive branch does not have the authority to provide straightforward solutions to college sports' problems, most importantly some form of antitrust exemption. That has to come from Congress, and right now will require bipartisan support.
The president's involvement could prioritize the issues in a way that motivates lawmakers to build on recent momentum in the Republican-controlled House, where a college sports bill made it out of committee for the first time earlier this week. Or maybe pervasive political divisiveness makes Democrats recoil from the idea of giving the president a symbolic victory.
While the complicated problems facing college sports now are not quite a matter of life and death, it remains to be seen if presidential involvement makes finding solutions easier or harder.
The SCORE Act is a House bill that would provide the NCAA and conferences some antitrust protection, pre-empt state laws related to NIL compensation and bolster the terms of the House settlement.
The SCORE Act made it through two Republican-led House committees on partisan lines earlier this week. No college sports bill has ever gotten so far. When Congress returns for the fall session, the bill could go to the House floor for a vote and it will probably pass. That's meaningful and a positive sign for many in college sports after years of inaction by lawmakers.
The bill also has little support from Democrats in the House and stands very little chance of making it through the Senate, where seven Democrats would have to vote with Republicans to get the 60 necessary to pass.
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The debate over college sports legislation on Capitol Hill is akin to a labor dispute.
Republicans, who currently control both chambers and the White House, are focused on ways to shield the NCAA and college sports conferences from litigation and state laws that make it impossible for them to effectively govern national competition.
Democrats are demanding greater protections for the workers (the athletes) and are hesitant to provide the antitrust protections college sports leaders have been lobbying for.
The NCAA and conferences want a law that would prevent college athletes from being deemed employees. Democrats want that option left open, along with athletes' rights to organize and maybe even join unions.
The president's EO is the most significant and direct entry by the executive branch into college athletics since Teddy Roosevelt's calls for safety reforms in football led to the creation of the NCAA in 1906.
Lyndon Johnson's executive order signed in 1967, led to the passage of the federal Title IX gender discrimination law, which has been credited with paving the way for an explosion of opportunities for women in college sports.
The NCAA as a governing body is ceding power to conferences and the newly formed College Sports Commission. However, it played a pivotal role in lobbying for federal legislation and has been much better received by lawmakers since former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker took over as NCAA president two years ago.
The NCAA's future will ultimately be determined by college sports stakeholders, not politicians.
The White House's announcement hailed Trump's long-held interest in college athletics, including preserving Olympic and women's sports amid the changing landscape. Until now, Trump's engagement with higher education has been adversarial, threatening federal funding and litigation against schools for Title IX violations or allegations of antisemitism and discrimination through the promotion of diversity at universities.
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Trump came away from a meeting with former Alabama football coach Nick Saban in May motivated to get involved. The formation of a presidential commission led by Saban and billionaire oil businessman Cody Campbell, a former Texas Tech football player and current board chair, was considered then put on hold as lawmakers worked on legislative solutions.