New Executive Order is Coming in a Week

WASHINGTON — The debate over the future of college athletics accelerated dramatically this week as President Donald Trump convened a White House roundtable on the proposed SCORE Act, warning lawmakers that if Congress fails to act quickly he is prepared to step in with an executive order within a week. "Through a bad legal system we have a system that is nearly unsolvable and ....this about our entire education system, which is going to go out business because of this...it is very, very important.," said President Trump.

The meeting brought together university presidents, conference officials, and policymakers to discuss federal legislation aimed at stabilizing the rapidly changing economics of college sports. At the center of the discussion was the proposed Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements (SCORE) Act, a bill intended to establish a national framework governing athlete compensation, name-image-and-likeness (NIL) payments, and revenue-sharing arrangements between universities and players.

The debate carries special significance for Indianapolis, home of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which has struggled to maintain a coherent regulatory structure in the face of a growing wave of lawsuits and state legislation reshaping the traditional model of amateur athletics.

During the roundtable, Trump sharply criticized what he described as judicial interference in the governance of college sports. According to participants, the president argued that court rulings and antitrust litigation have effectively dismantled the NCAA’s long-standing amateurism framework without providing universities a workable replacement.

“The courts have stepped in and fundamentally changed the rules,” Trump said during the discussion, according to accounts from those present. “If Congress cannot fix it quickly, we may have to do something ourselves.”

The president reportedly told attendees he would be willing to draft and issue an executive order within one week if lawmakers fail to advance federal legislation addressing the issue.

Such a move would represent a significant escalation in Washington’s involvement in college athletics, an industry that generates tens of billions of dollars annually through television rights, sponsorships, and postseason championships.

Supporters of the SCORE Act argue that federal legislation is urgently needed because the current system is fractured. Since NIL rights were opened to athletes in 2021, more than thirty states have enacted their own laws governing compensation and athlete representation, creating a patchwork of regulations that many university leaders say has produced competitive imbalances and legal uncertainty.

The proposed legislation seeks to create a single national standard for athlete compensation while also providing additional protections for players, including guaranteed scholarships, medical coverage for sports injuries, and expanded educational support.

At the same time, the bill would attempt to preserve key elements of the traditional collegiate model by clarifying that athletes would not be classified as employees of their universities, an issue currently being contested in multiple court cases.

For the NCAA, the stakes are enormous. The Indianapolis-based organization has long served as the central governing body for college athletics, overseeing championship events and establishing eligibility rules for more than 1,000 member institutions.

But the past several years of litigation have weakened its authority, forcing the organization and conferences to repeatedly revise rules governing athlete compensation and recruiting.

If Congress passes the SCORE Act, the NCAA could gain a clearer federal framework for regulating the industry. If Washington fails to act, however, the president’s willingness to intervene through executive action suggests the governance of college sports may increasingly shift from Indianapolis to the federal government.

Either way, the message from this week’s White House meeting, star studded, was unmistakable: the structure of college athletics in the United States is entering a new era—and decisions made in Washington in the coming days may determine what that system ultimately looks like--more like it did before.