Trump vows executive order to 'fix' college sports NIL payments 'mess'

President Donald Trump on Friday vowed to issue an executive order to "fix" what he called a "mess" in college sports created by NIL payments to football, basketball and other players and a legal settlement that allowed universities to directly pay their athletes.Trump said he fully expected such an order would be challenged in the courts, but added that he hoped there would be a judge who would support the order's goal."We'll be sued, and we'll go before the courts, and here we go again," he said.Trump's comments about the name, image and likeness payments system, the House v. NCAA legal case settlement, and other issues came at the Saving College Sports Roundtable at the White House.Attendees included NCAA President Charlie Baker, former Alabama football coach Nick Saban, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.No student-athletes were invited to the event. Groups representing college players and pro athletes have opposed efforts that would restrict the rights that college players have under the current NIL structure."I will have an executive order within one week," he said. "Which will solve every conceivable problem in this room.""If this doesn't work, college sports will be destroyed," Trump said. "Women's sports will be destroyed."Johnson suggested that Trump allow Republicans in Congress to try to address the purported problem by continuing to try to pass the so-called SCORE Act, which the NCAA has backed. That bill, among other things, would preempt state regulation of NIL payments.The meeting came less than a year after a federal judge signed off on the House v. NCAA settlement, which allowed colleges to spend up to $20.5 million per year, with annual increases of that amount, to directly pay their athletes. Most of that spending goes to the two sports that generate the most revenue for colleges and universities: Football and basketball."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."It's crazy," Trump said. "Young people are being signed, 17-year-old quarterbacks for $12 million, 13 million, 14 million.""We have a seven-year freshman," he said. "We're seeing things that we've never seen before. We have college players that don't want to go to the NFL because they're making more money in college, right?""A lot of really bad things are happening, but basic questions like who is eligible to play are now virtually unregulated and decided randomly by judges rather than by reasonable, agreed-upon rules that could be very simple and very simply drawn," he said. "So this has grown into a major challenge."Critics of the NIL compensation system and direct payments system in college sports say that they undercut the finances of schools and their educational mandate.Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inboxGet this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.© 2026 Versant Media, LLC.

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