President Donald Trump issued an executive order Friday in his effort to “fix all the problems” affecting college sports, particularly the divisive Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rule.
The executive order – which may need to clear several legal challenges to be considered enforceable – includes sections on eligibility, transfer rules, details of professional athletes who intend to return to college, financial sharing and medical care, among other topics.
The order asks Congress to “promptly pass legislation” and directs the Federal Trade Commission and the Attorney General to take “appropriate enforcement actions.”:
Trump’s order calls for athletes to be eligible for only five years, though there are exceptions such as military service, and bars qualified athletes from returning.
The latter became the latest issue when former G League player Charles Bediako returned to Alabama after entering the NBA draft, only to have the judge end his season.
The order also calls for the “establishment of formal transfer rules for academic and athletic continuity” — which would reportedly limit one-time transfers to a five-year window for immediate eligibility, but additional transfers would be allowed if a person earns a four-year degree.
The program says that the window for trading players criticized by coaches when it falls on the calendar, is pushed to a time when it does not affect seasons or academics.
There is also a section that states that groups and the like that use pay-to-play should be banned.
The proposal additionally guarantees medical care for athletes during their academic and post-graduation periods, as well as revenue sharing for the purpose of helping women’s and Olympic sports, which bring in less money compared to those who make money in football and basketball.
This executive order comes a month after Trump held a “Saving College Sports Roundtable” with about 50 people, and Yankees president Randy Levine was named vice-chair.
NCAA President Charlie Baker, Gov. Florida’s Ron DeSantis, several college commissioners and former Alabama football coach Nick Saban were present for the discussion.
That meeting set the stage for the executive order to be suspended in a collaborative effort between the White House and the Department of Justice.
“I’m going to have an executive order within a week, and it’s going to cover everything,” Trump said at the time, via ESPN. “And we’re going to put it forward, and we’re going to be sued, and we’re going to see how it plays out, OK, but I’m going to have an executive order, that’s going to solve every problem in this room, every possible problem, within one week, and we’re going to put it forward. We’re going to be sued. That’s the only thing I know for sure.”
The NIL season established in 2021 has ushered college athletics into a new era where colleges like professionals, teams can buy players and establish haves and have-nots.
In the past, schools cheated by paying players under the table, but now they can do it in public with staggering figures.
BYU men’s basketball star AJ Dybantsa signed a NIL deal reportedly worth $7 million, while Kentucky reportedly spent $22 million on a team that won one NCAA Tournament game this season.
Texas quarterback Arch Manning, Eli’s nephew, has a projected NIL of $5.4 million, per on3.com.
“That’s cheating,” former Ohio State and Florida coach Urban Meyer said while criticizing the pools that pay athletes, according to ESPN. “Sponsors put money in the pot. It is given to players by coaches and managers. That is not allowed. That should not be done. That is paying to play.”
The arrival of the transfer portal also led to chaos at times, with players changing schools year after year – and sometimes due to financial constraints.
Baker previously requested legal assistance in managing this new border.
He intended to get help in banning athletes from becoming employees of their school, replace state laws with federal law and protect the NCAA from lawsuits.
“When I took this job, the message I heard from Congress was clear — fix what you control first,” Baker said in January, according to the Associated Press. “Since then, we have developed college sports to meet the needs of today’s student-athletes. But we cannot solve all the threats we face alone.”
This is the second executive order Trump has issued regarding college sports in a short period of time, calling for a special window for the Army-Navy game.
