Indianapolis, Ind. – On the eve of tipoff at the Final Four, the President of the United States is making a splash.
President Donald Trump on Friday issued his new executive order to regulate college sports.
Advertising
The 10-page order comes a day before the NCAA’s crown jewel — the men’s basketball tournament — reaches its pinnacle event in central Indiana.
The order gives the NCAA the ability and suggests the organization restrict athlete transfer movements, cap player eligibility, impose funding requirements for women’s and Olympic sports, and prohibit NIL collectives. As an enforcement lever, past iterations of the order relied on the university’s lack of federal funding — an incentive for schools and conferences to follow the concepts.
The order, key parts of which go into effect Aug. 1, directs the NCAA to update its rules by Aug. 1 — to the maximum extent allowed by law — “to bring order and stability to the landscape in some key areas,” a source who reviewed the document told Yahoo Sports. In particular, one of those areas is relocation.
Compliance with these regulations will be relevant in determining whether schools will continue to receive federal funding.
Advertising
Many — including the president himself — expect the order to be legally challenged.
President Donald Trump gestures as former head coach Nick Saban (R) speaks during a roundtable discussion on college sports with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles on March 6. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images)
Perhaps the most important concepts in the document are efforts to regulate athlete movement and compensation.
The order not only grants but also orders the association to create stricter lines around booster-backed NIL collectives — which it describes as “fraudulent NIL schemes” — and limits the movement of transfers by reinstating the NCAA’s “one-time” transfer rule. The court declared the rule illegal through a judgment of no confidence. The rule would allow athletes to transfer once before they would have to miss a season as a penalty for any further moves.
Advertising
The order does not unilaterally and immediately change the transfer rules, an important concept. Language is critical as thousands of players — some of whom have already transferred once — prepare to enter the basketball portal, which opens Tuesday.
The order prohibits professional athletes from returning to play in college and encourages the NCAA to define an athlete’s eligibility window at five years. The NCAA eligibility standard is currently four competitive seasons over five years. It’s an important topic that even the most ardent NCAA opponents believe should be regulated.
In the past year, more than 70 players have filed lawsuits against the governing body, as players use state and local judges to extend their eligibility. The NCAA spent $16 million on eligibility matters alone.
Trump wrote in the order that the NCAA must implement revenue-sharing that “preserves or expands scholarships” in women’s and Olympic sports; Prohibition of using federal funds for NIL or rev-share; and prohibit “improper financial activities, including collective . . .”
Advertising
Women’s and Olympic sports are said to be a focus for Trump, who believes non-revenue programs are being eliminated or at least defunded, as schools shift more resources to football and men’s basketball in an intense and competitive recruiting environment where compensation is legalized.
Finally, the order invalidates certain state laws that conflict with the order, which likely includes many state laws that operate the NIL.
But the actual impact of the order remains unclear, and there are doubts that Trump’s previous executive order, issued in July, has produced any real results within the industry. This, however, is more comprehensive and direct as opposed to the last one, which only directed its cabinet members to make regulations – which never materialized.
Executive orders are subject to legal scrutiny, especially those that ignore court orders. In fact, the courts have struck down many of the president’s orders over the past several months, rendering them moot and unenforceable. At a White House roundtable event last month, the president himself predicted he would legally challenge any order. He said he was “hoping” for a favorable judge.
Advertising
Why can’t the industry go back to the old system? Trump asked for a room of special people at a March 6 roundtable event. “I want to go back to exactly what we had and enjoy it through the court.”
Like the Roundtable program, the order is likely geared toward bringing attention to the issue in order to pressure lawmakers in Congress to reach consensus on a more concrete solution: legislation. That’s something that lawmakers have failed to do in seven years of lobbying for a bill from the NCAA, specifically, to allow college sports leaders to enact and enforce rules without being legally challenged — in other words, an antitrust exemption.
However, anger divides between those on both sides of the aisle over an issue that many consider to be fundamentally bipartisan in nature. That has not been proven true.
Republicans support a more narrow NCAA-leaning bill with athlete bans; Democrats, many of them staunch critics of the NCAA and power conference leadership, are backing a more comprehensive bill with athlete freedoms.
Advertising
Despite the confidence of Republican leadership in the House, the Republican-authored SCORE Act — a piece of sweeping legislation to come out of a committee — has twice failed to reach the House floor for a vote. Lawmakers are working to pass SCORE by the end of the month, but they will continue the voting process. Holding a slim House majority, Republicans can’t afford to lose their own members, some of whom oppose parts of the bill.
Even if it were to advance through the House, SCORE would need significant amendments to pass the U.S. Senate, which would require a 60-vote margin for legislation to pass. That means seven Democrats voted in favor of the measure — a tall order.
Advertising
In the Senate, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Va.) are separately negotiating a bill, though if past discussions are any indication, the two bills disagree on a wide variety of concepts, particularly government oversight of college sports, athlete employment and the breadth of antitrust protections.
Meanwhile, five presidential committees — made up of college sports stakeholders, business executives and other dignitaries — began meeting this week with the goal of informing Congress on the legislation. Each committee is charged with studying the case, as well as a sixth group, an oversight committee, to review their work.
The oversight committee includes six presidents/chancellors from Georgia, Nebraska, Tennessee, Kansas, Utah and North Carolina, as well as former Clemson presidents Jim Clements, Cody Campbell, Randy Levine and Gov. Ron DeSantis. The five “issues” committees are legislation (work with Congress for federal antitrust protection), regulations (NIL, portal, determine eligibility standards), NCAA reform (future governance), media (media rights and SBA), and player-agent relationship issues.
Commissioners of the SEC, ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and American and Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua have been appointed to the rules, media and NCAA reform committees, along with many other notable names including Nick Saban, Condoleezza Rice and Adam Silver.
