President Donald Trump hosted a roundtable discussion titled “Saving College Sports” in the White House East Room on Friday, gathering about 50 leaders from politics, sports, and academia to address turmoil in collegiate athletics.
The nearly two-hour meeting focused on issues like Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals, player transfers, conference realignments, and the erosion of educational priorities amid economic pressures.
Panelists, including former coaches Nick Saban and Urban Meyer, NCAA President Charlie Baker, and conference commissioners such as Greg Sankey of the SEC, highlighted the chaos caused by unregulated NIL collectives, which Meyer labeled as “cheating” and unauthorized pay-for-play.
“Donors put money in a pot. It’s distributed to the players through coaches and managers. That’s not allowed. Not supposed to do that. That’s pay-for-play,” Meyer said, via ESPN.
Saban emphasized the need to restore focus on education, noting that discussions rarely mention academics anymore. Concerns extended to Olympic and women’s sports, with U.S. Olympic CEO Sarah Hirshland warning that unsustainable investments threaten the athlete pipeline for Team USA.
Trump pledged to issue an “all-encompassing” executive order within one week to resolve every problem raised, acknowledging potential lawsuits but committing to action. He stressed the importance of federal legislation, like the SCORE Act, to regulate NIL and maintain college sports’ integrity.
“I will have an executive order within one week, and it will be very all-encompassing,” Trump said. “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.”
Absent student-athletes were deemed well-represented by advocates.
“They’re very well-represented,” Trump said. “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. In that sense, they’re represented very well here.”
Commissioners urged swift congressional help to prevent further fracturing.
