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- A legal settlement worth US$2.8bn introduced a new revenue-sharing system for college sports
- Trump says executive order will be “all-encompassing” and in place within a week
- US president hosts roundtable to address industry’s issues
US president Donald Trump has committed to signing a new executive order aiming to address the issues he believes are afflicting college sports, specifically the remuneration of student athletes through name, image and likeness (NIL) payments.
Trump alleges that new revenue sharing models risk “the whole educational system is going to go out of business” and that “college sports will be destroyed” without his unilateral intervention.
Preempting that his order would face legal action, once again bringing NIL and athlete payments in front of a judge, Trump called on lawmakers to give him their support.
“The amount of money being spent and lost by otherwise very successful schools is astounding just in a short period of time,” Trump said. “It’s only going to get worse. We have to save college sports, and, I believe, colleges. If Congress doesn’t take action fast, it could destroy college sports.”
The pledge follows Trump’s inaugural ‘Saving College Sports’ roundtable at the White House last week, attended by National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) president Charlie Baker, Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey and Sarah Hirshland, the chief executive of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC). No current student-athletes were in attendance for the meeting.
The summit aimed to address issues facing the college sports industry, which will experience major change once the revenue-sharing system is in place later this year. The system was introduced as part of a settlement worth US$2.8 billion for three antitrust lawsuits, which was signed off by the NCAA and college conferences before gaining final approval from a district judge.
At the roundtable, US House of Representatives speaker Mike Johnson suggested a proposed bill could help remedy the problems. The Score Act, which is backed by the NCAA and USOPC, would regulate the payments made to student-athletes, with opponents of the act warning it would prohibit athletes from becoming employees of their schools.
Trump also noted that Olympic and women’s sports could be significantly hit by the athlete payment structure, with colleges expected to spend most of their US$20.5 million budget on college football and basketball players, given both sports generate the most revenue for institutions.
Hirshland warned Trump that the medal success of the US team in the Olympics was largely continent on the college system.
“Around the world, nations are investing aggressively in sports, building centralised training systems, expanding funding and prioritising athlete development in new ways,” said Hirshland. “That growing global competition comes at a moment when US colleges must increase their investments in football to stay competitive. The economic pressures are unsustainable.
“We’ve heard this several times and we know that Olympic-sport budgets inevitably rise to the top as the first to be cut. In some cases, it’s women’s sports, but also men’s sports that could be eliminated. We must keep our eye on both.”
Meanwhile, it emerged after the summit that a Republican and Democrat senator was planning on introducing a new bill this week that would give conferences the option of consolidating their media rights. The bipartisan legislation would amend the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, with projections estimating conferences could earn another US$6 billion to US$7 billion in income.
However, this idea has already gained pushback from the SEC and the Big Ten conferences, who believe that pooling media rights would lead to a “dangerously unworkable model and new risks to the college sports landscape”.
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