The review on Trump’s issue comes from a conversation with former Alabama football coach Nick Saban earlier this week.
Trump says he will cancel Harvard’s tax-free status
The Trump administration threatened to freeze $2 billion in federal funds after it disagreed with the list of requests from the administration.
- In talks with Bill’s Senator Ted Cruz, Sen. Richard Blumental said Trump “has no power to control the decree, particularly to give handouts to the NCAA.”
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is giving “serious consideration” to sign an executive order addressing payments to university athletes who are familiar with issues identified in USA Today on May 2.
The person requested anonymity as he was not permitted to speak publicly about the matter.
The review on Trump’s issue is set to be spoken at the university’s opening ceremony, in a conversation with former University of Alabama football coach, Nick Saban, when Trump was in Tuscaloosa on May 1.
This order could add surveillance to names, images, similarities, or nils that exploded across university athletics, with few arbitrary regulations, but how the order dealt with nil was not immediately clear.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report considerations regarding Trump’s lawsuit. This was added to more than 140 executive orders, with Trump signing the first 102 days, reaching a range of issues.
Saban was critical of the current state of university sports as part of Cruz’s ongoing efforts to create a college sports law that could pass Congress, including a roundtable event in Washington hosted by R-Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in March 2024.
Saban said at the time, the “personal development” of athletes was hampered by a combination of virtually unlimited opportunities for athletes to make money from the NIL and the ability to move multiple times in their college careers. He also said, “It brings rules that create a kind of competitive balance. This is not college athletics now. Paying most money, making the most money, buying the most players, will have the best chance to win. I don’t think that’s the spirit of college athletics.”
U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, said he had a “great conversation” with Air Force Trump about the “importantness of establishing NIL national standards” during his presidential trip to the state.
“College football is the heart and soul of America, but it’s dangerous if you don’t level the arena,” said Tuberville, a former soccer coach at Auburn University and other schools.
Trump’s potential entry into the area comes as plaintiffs’ lawyers, NCAA and lawyers for the Power Five Conference are about to revise one aspect of the proposed settlement in the three athlete compensation antitrust cases where US district judge Claudia Wilken said he was otherwise ready to get final approval.
Under the arrangement, current and former athletes and their attorneys will receive $2.8 billion in damages over a decade, and Division I schools can pay directly for Athlete’s use, subject to a per-school cap based on a percentage of specific athlete income, increasing over time. Athletes will continue to be allowed to trade with non-school entities, but transactions over $600 will be subject to more scrutiny than they are now.
The proposed settlement would resolve some issues with the NCAA and its conference and schools, but they continue to lobby Congress for legislation enshrine the rights of athletes in federal law, preempting dozens of state laws passed in relation to athletes’ NIL rights and gave the NCAA a measure of the Anthrat suit. This is where Trump can intervene.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump has instructed White House aides to begin studying what the order looks like.
Senator Richard Blumenthal said in a statement to USA Today on the night of May 2nd about Trump’s potential involvement.
Steve Berman, one of the lead lawyers for plaintiffs in an ongoing antitrust case, condemned Trump’s prospects of involvement in any way restricting athletes, in a statement to USA Today.
“The president says he is the greatest business person ever,” Berman writes. “Why would he do anything to limit the business transactions students were negotiating for his Nir? He was a free market profit.
“What a hypocrite about Saban. He’s been nil’s opponent from the start, while he’s chasing tens of millions off the backs of these athletes.
“Trump should talk to coach (Jim) Harbaugh, a fan of the fast-growing Nil market, not of the coaches’ exploitation system that Saban benefits.”
Berman was referring to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s opinion of consent to the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Alston v. NCAA antitrust. The High Court has concluded the association’s limitations on education-related benefits athletes receive to play college sports. Kavanaugh strongly criticized the NCAA’s restrictions on athlete compensation.
Harbaugh has repeatedly defended greater compensation for college athletes over nine seasons as a University of Michigan football coach, along with the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers.