U.S. President Donald Trump said he’ll issue an executive order sometime in the next week during a first-of-its-kind “Saving College Sports” roundtable hosted in the White House’s East Room on Friday.
The overarching theme of the meeting was that college sports require federal legislation to stabilize the financial landscape, particularly with several athletic departments struggling in the wake of the House settlement.
The roundtable brought together approximately 50 people from varied backgrounds in college athletics, including conference commissioners, university presidents, chancellors and athletic directors, along with politicians, sports celebrities and media executives.
Trump chaired the event, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and New York Yankees president Randy Levine served as vice chairs, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Senator Ted Cruz also attended.
NCAA President Charlie Baker was also in attendance, while SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, ACC leader Jim Phillips, Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark, American Commissioner Tim Pernetti, and Notre Dame Athletics Director Pete Bevacqua were among those to speak.
The headline of the event was Trump’s claim that he’ll issue an Executive Order within a week to solve all the problems in college athletics.
“I will have an executive order within one week, and it will be very all-encompassing,” Trump said, according to ESPN. “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.”
According to The Athletic, Trump’s announcement that he would sign an executive order imminently was a result of frustration after hearing about the challenges of passing legislation through Congress and how past court decisions have reshaped college sports.
“You have a lot of Democrats in the Senate that I hear are opposed to almost anything,” Trump said, according to The Athletic.
He acknowledged that an executive order can’t make a law, provide antitrust exemptions, or override state laws. Any policy in an executive order can also be challenged in court.
“Let’s see if we can get it through the court system, which we might not be able to do,” Trump said.
Trump signed a “Saving College Sports” executive order last July designed in part to help protect Olympic sports, but it has not yet produced binding changes.
The SCORE Act (Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements), which would grant the NCAA limited antitrust protections and preempt state laws in NIL deals, was the main piece of legislation supported by speakers at the meeting.
Senator Cruz noted that the Senate needs 60 votes to pass the SCORE Act, including seven from Democrats.
“The SCORE Act has many good elements, it’s a very good first step,” Cruz said, according to Yahoo! Sports. “But the challenge is for this to be passed into law and put on (the president’s) desk, we need 60 votes in the Senate, which means we need at least seven Senate Democrats (to support it). Right now there are zero.”
NCAA President Baker said after the meeting: “It was good to hear so many speakers advocate for the SCORE Act, which does address many of the issues that cause both uncertainty and confusion for just about all of us in college sports these days,” Baker said, according to The Athletic.
“The chance for us to engage with one another informally beforehand and afterward was also a real bonus. Everybody appreciated the President’s decision to get us together, given the urgency of the issues we were discussing.”
Student-athletes were notably absent at the meeting, though Trump said they were “very well-represented.”
“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,” Trump said. “In that sense, they’re represented very well here.”
Let me guess he’s going to appoint Erica Kirk to another board…..
Ah yes, because he has done so well solving all of the other problems in the country…
Wait a sec – in reading the comments on here, I’m shocked – *SHOCKED* – that you all don’t think that King Donald will fix college sports with one of his Royal Edicts. I just can’t wait to watch the video of him slumped in his throne with Urban Meyer, Randy Levine (seriously!?!?), Marco Rubio, Ron DeSantis, and the rest of them standing behind him, fawning and drooling over him, and then all of them accepting one of his pens as a souvenir of the moment, after watching him etch his jagged-lined signature onto the royal parchment memorializing a bunch of drivel that won’t come close to solving anything.
Can’t think of less athletic people than trump rubio miller or johnson….
Rubio played a season of NAIA college football and his son plays at Florida. I could think of less athletic people than that.
🤣 Ron Desantis played baseball for YALE… He was a team captain, and play in the little league world series when he was younger… So maybe its safe to say, he in fact is more athletic than 99% of people in this country…
As an outsider, watching the self destruction of USA in the past year is fascinating.
It would be entertaining if only it didn’t involve bombing other countries and killing innocent civilians.
“the past year” ???
“self destruction” started January last year.
Bombing other countries and killing innocent civilians have been ongoing for decades.
I’d argue they are a decade in now.
Oh you are right.
I forgot it started in 2016.
Earlier. 9/11, citizens united (2010)…
😂
How long before this thread vanishes?
How long do you think it will be before SwimSwam deletes this Frankenstein of a thread? 😂
Oh. It looks like I repeat myself because my “approvals” finally came through. 😂
SwimSwam trolling Trump
Sir, you won “being president.” You can step down now.
Thank you Mr President!
A lot of TDS (Turmp Derangement Syndrome) in these comments!
Is that you, Regan?
Bossanova is 100% current -Trump is pretty deranged, but that’s the magic of his (stable) genius. He doesn’t need to understand how things work, or even how to string together sentences coherently, as long as someone Very Important is whispering sweet nothings in his ear, ideally with a solid gold jumbo jet passing hands to underscore the ironclad logic and rhetorical wit inherent to the arguments he’s paid to parrot.
College sports? Pfft. He’s gonna solve this thing with a cleverly crafted executive order. DONE. Aced it.
Deranged like a fox, don’t you see it?! Who else can solve college sports AND flawlessly conduct a war in Iran (flawlessly), all while barely even thinking about either one for more than… Read more »
Dude…in T?@$p threads, I’d recommend 25 words max, and mostly one-syllable.
TDS+HyperOCD = This post.
Those are too many letters for me to understand, but I’m drinking the Kool-Aid. All hail the Dear Leader – may he smite his enemies and pocket a few million for his troubles.
Now that is the spirit!
Please help me out with the MAGAs.
Tina? (Regan is cased.)