President Donald Trump on Friday again waded into contentious issues around college sports, ordering the field’s governing bodies to create new regulations around name, image and likeness (NIL) rules, calling for limits on athletes’ ability to transfer schools and calling for more funding for women’s sports.
Trump’s order instructs federal agencies to evaluate whether existing rules on college athletes’ transfers, eligibility and reimbursement could make a university ineligible for federal grants and contracts, according to a White House fact sheet that said Trump was taking “urgent national action to save college sports.”
The order would restrict the amount of money student-athletes could get and also would limit their movement between schools. It calls for a five-year participation window for athletes to compete, addressing a growing complaint that some college athletes are unduly stretching their careers and affecting the competitive balance among teams.
The order comes amid one of college sports’ most-watched events — the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. But it also arrives at a time of deep uncertainty for college athletics. A series of court decisions has weakened the NCAA’s authority and opened the door to expanded compensation for athletes and freer movement between schools — changes that have upended the economic model and reshaped the traditional structure of college athletics.
Trump’s move is widely viewed as vulnerable to court challenges, something the president recently conceded.
“We will get sued,” the president said at a White House meeting last month, previewing his planned executive order. “That’s the only thing I know for sure.”
Several of the order’s provisions potentially clash with recent judicial decisions. In recent years, judges have repeatedly struck down NCAA rules restricting athlete compensation and mobility. It also is expected to draw mixed reactions across the industry — welcomed by some leaders seeking a firmer structure, but raising concerns among those who have pushed to expand athletes’ rights and compensation.
Yahoo Sports first reported aspects of the president’s order.
Mit Winter, a Kansas City-based sports law attorney who specializes in college sports matters, said Friday’s order will likely set up a situation where the NCAA and schools have to decide whether they’re going to follow a federal court order or the executive order. Trump’s order, he said, appears to direct the NCAA “to create rules that would likely violate” court orders.
“Will the NCAA create rules that do that? And if they do, will schools follow them?” he said. “Either way, we’re likely going to see litigation challenging the [the order] by athletes and third parties.”
Elements of Trump’s order parallel legislation introduced last week by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama), a Trump ally and a former college football coach. Tuberville’s legislation would restore stricter transfer rules by allowing one penalty-free move while requiring athletes to sit out a season after a second transfer. It would also establish a five-year window for five seasons of eligibility.
Friday’s order marks Trump’s latest executive action aimed at college sports. A previous order, signed in July 2025 and titled “Saving College Sports,” directed federal agencies to study the issue and develop recommendations, but thus far it has yielded little in the way of concrete policy changes. He also signed an order last month to protect the TV window for the Army-Navy football game.
The challenges facing college sports have increasingly become a political priority amid complaints from some college leaders and fans that the system is in trouble and only intervention from Washington can save it. Lawmakers have floated competing visions for how — or whether — to expand or restrict athletes’ rights.
Trump last month convened a two-hour White House roundtable intended to address problems plaguing college sports. The session brought together some of the most powerful figures in the industry, including NCAA President Charlie Baker, conference commissioners and media executives — but no athletes.
The president grew increasingly heated as participants described the forces transforming college athletics. At times, he suggested a desire to roll back those changes entirely, lamenting what he portrayed as an unchecked system of athlete compensation and movement.
“I’d like to just go exactly back to what we had and ram it through a court if we have to,” he said.
Trump has also continued to fixate on the issue in recent appearances.
“NIL, it’s a disaster. College sports are a disaster,” Trump said at a fundraising dinner last week, blaming a judge’s “horrible decision” to side with college athletes seeking payment. “What they’ve done is destroyed college sports and destroying colleges because colleges can’t afford to pay quarterbacks that never threw a ball before that are 17 years old.”
Some lawmakers and college leaders have coalesced around the SCORE Act, a bill in Congress that would introduce new, standardized regulations on player payments and set limits on their compensation. But the bill’s sweeping provisions have drawn complaints from lawmakers and critics who say the legislation would strengthen the largest college sports programs at the expense of smaller institutions. Several legislators have proposed their own, narrower fixes.
Sens. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) last month introduced draft legislation that would allow college football institutions to jointly sell their media rights and makes it optional for conferences and schools to pool their media rights together. Schmitt and Cantwell say that would boost revenue for college sports.
But planned congressional fixes face long odds. Despite years of lobbying from the NCAA and repeated congressional hearings, lawmakers have yet to advance comprehensive legislation and have struggled to even get a floor vote.
The post Trump again orders changes to ‘save’ college sports appeared first on Washington Post.
