WASHINGTON — This past Thursday morning here in the nation’s capital, the president of the NCAA, Charlie Baker, addressed several dozen individuals comprising members and guests from the National Press Club — an establishment situated in the downtown area of Washington, conveniently located a short distance from the White House.
Just a few brief hours later, the prolonged battle of the association, spanning several years, advocating for federal government intervention in the realm of college athletics potentially received a significant impetus from the very individual residing just a few blocks away.
President Donald Trump unveiled his highly anticipated executive directive pertaining to collegiate athletics, declaring through a five-page document entitled “SAVING COLLEGE SPORTS” his intention to instruct members of his cabinet to formulate policies concerning various facets of the sector that safeguard the NCAA and its conferences from enacting and formulating regulations to govern it.
However, what are the precise implications of Trump’s executive order? What changes, if any, will it bring about in terms of athlete compensation and the transfer environment within college sports?
The concise response, at least for the present moment, is: not much.
The more elaborate response is… well… there are still questions.
What are the most significant components of the directive?
Trump’s executive order has been a considerable time in the making. To illustrate, just recently Yahoo Sports procured a copy of a draft version of the order, which bears substantial resemblance to the finalized version that he signed and officially released on Thursday.
Foremost among its features, the order’s introductory remarks portray the landscape of college athletics as having been subjected to unjust judicial decisions that have “created an out-of-control, rudderless system” currently “under unprecedented threat.”
“The multitude of recent legal challenges against the governing rules of collegiate athletics have eradicated limitations on athlete compensation, enticements involving pay-for-play recruiting, and transfers across universities, thereby instigating a profound transformation that jeopardizes the sustainability of college sports,” Trump elaborates within the order.
He further writes critically that certain institutions are disbursing as much as $50 million to their athletes this year through a combination of revenue sharing associated with the House settlement and third-party NIL agreements. “A national solution is urgently needed to prevent this situation from deteriorating beyond repair and to protect non-revenue sports, including many women’s sports,” he writes.
His strategy involves directing several members of his cabinet — the attorney general, secretary of labor, secretary of education, etc. — to devise policies around specific concepts for which the NCAA and its conferences have been soliciting assistance from Congress for several years. Among these are:
Safeguarding scholarships for non-revenue sports: A notable provision of the executive order mandates that schools either sustain or augment the number of scholarships extended to non-revenue sports. This measure is intended to shield Olympic and women’s sports that face the potential of elimination as institutions divert greater funding away from these and toward revenue-generating sports such as football and men’s basketball. Specifically, those entities with budgets exceeding $125 million (primarily the power league schools) must provide more scholarship opportunities than they did last year, for instance. Those with budgets of $50 million must provide at least the same.
Prohibiting third-party, “pay-for-play”: This could be interpreted as a prohibition on booster collective payments to athletes, which, in a sense, codifies the terms of the House settlement by prohibiting collective payments to athletes unless they are regarded as legitimate endorsements or commercial opportunities. This precise point lies at the core of negotiations among attorneys that are expected to culminate soon in a resolution permitting collectives to operate with greater latitude than initially envisioned. The executive order reinforces that provision in the House settlement.
How does Trump intend to enforce these parameters? That remains somewhat ambiguous, but he implies within the order that members of his cabinet, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, have a 30-day period to formulate a plan for the enforcement of such, potentially encompassing the withholding of federal funding for violators, initiating Title IX investigations, etc.
Athlete employment: Trump instructs the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to “clarify the status of college athletes” — a transparent gesture toward the ongoing discussion concerning potential court rulings that could classify college athletes as employees. As asserted in the order’s preamble, Trump opposes the prospect of college athletes becoming employees and, through this directive, is explicitly directing cabinet members and the NLRB — for which he appoints the board — to rule that college athletes are students. Ironically, despite many college leaders fighting against employment, some of them believe collective bargaining is the only solution for the industry.
Limited liability protection: This is another matter for which the NCAA and its conferences have expended millions of dollars and six years of lobbying efforts. They seek protection from legal challenges to enforce their regulations pertaining to matters such as transfers, roster limitations, and booster payments — many of which have been deemed unlawful by the courts. Trump explicitly disagrees with these judicial decisions, as he indicates in the preamble.
The order tasks the attorney general and the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission with creating policies to safeguard the “long-term availability of college athletic scholarship and opportunities” when such is “unreasonably challenged under antitrust” law. The attorney general and the FTC have 60 days to devise such a plan, according to the order.
The answer here is potentially … nothing.
Trump’s cabinet members — many of whom are occupied with other more immediate concerns — will need to formulate policies on these topics. The particulars of those policies will determine the precise significance, if any, of this order.
What is certain is that any policies that are created do not constitute law and will likely be subject to legal scrutiny. Legislative actions and court rulings are the law of the land — not executive orders, legal experts tell Yahoo Sports.
Baker even alluded to this during his talk Thursday morning.
“You can’t fix this stuff from executive order,” he said. “Our focus for now really needs to be trying to get stuff dealt with through the legislative process.”
As it happens, Wednesday marked a historic juncture for college sports concerning congressional legislation. A comprehensive federal college sports bill advanced from committee for the first time since the NCAA’s lobbying efforts commenced nearly six years ago. The SCORE Act, which is bipartisan but leans toward the Republican and NCAA stance, and is opposed by numerous Democrats, garnered the requisite votes to proceed from committees and is eligible for deliberation on the House floor upon the members’ return in September following their customary summer recess.
In many respects, the SCORE Act bestows upon the NCAA and its conferences protections akin to those outlined in Trump’s order. Predominantly, Trump’s executive order may spur Congress to more promptly and decisively push the bill across the finish line. However, should it advance from the House, the SCORE Act encounters formidable opposition in a divided U.S. Senate, where a minimum of seven Democrats are required to overcome the filibuster and attain the 60-vote threshold for bill passage.
The Senate, however, has been striving to introduce its own legislation, spearheaded by Sen. Ted Cruz, who, similarly to Trump, has prioritized the regulation of college sports. He has been engaged in negotiations for months with several Democrats, most notably Chris Coons, Richard Blumenthal, and Cory Booker. Despite over a year of intensive discussions, no agreement has been reached.
Will Trump’s executive order alter that situation?
It represents one of numerous unresolved queries concerning the matter.
