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President Donald Trump hosted a college sports roundtable Friday to examine solutions to key challenges, including the authority of the NCAA; name, image and likeness (NIL) issues; collective bargaining; and governance concerns.
Sports officials in attendance included NCAA President Charlie Baker, former Alabama football coach Nick Saban, OutKick founder Clay Travis, New York Yankees President Randy Levine, and each of the Power Four commissioners, among others.
“This is the future, I think, beyond college sports. This is the future of universities,” Trump said at the start of the roundtable. “The amount of money spent and lost by otherwise high-performing schools is staggering in a short period of time. It will only get worse. We must save college sports and, I believe, colleges.
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President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable discussion on college sports in the East Room of the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, March 6, 2026. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)
“Crazy things are happening. … We have a seven-year-old freshman. We’re seeing things we’ve never seen before. College players don’t want to go pro because they make more money in college,” he added.
Trump said there was a “failure to make rules,” noting that different states have different NIL laws, raising another challenge for college sports.
“If Congress doesn’t act quickly, it could destroy college sports,” Trump said.
Trump ripped “a judge who knew nothing about sports, knew nothing about football, knew nothing about the Olympics, knew nothing about anything, just decided everything was unconstitutional.”
He was likely referring to Judge Claudia Wilken, who ruled in 2019 that the NCAA’s limits on education benefits violated antitrust law.
“It’s crazy. Only Congress can provide a permanent solution,” Trump said.
Trump stressed that he was not in the business of letting athletes go unpaid.
“However, it’s not the worst idea,” he admitted. “But I think a lot of people would reject me on that.”
Later, Trump said he wanted to “just go back to what you had, let a judge tell you you can’t do it, you appeal and you win at some point. Because what you had – what a great system. Everybody was happy.”
Saban said helping athletes become more successful on a personal level has become “impossible” in today’s era.
“People, instead of making decisions about creating value for their future, were making decisions about how much money they could make at whatever school they could go to or transfer to,” Saban said.
“I think we have to find a system, and, obviously, we have to do it with the leadership of the president and also probably with Congress… to allow student-athletes in all sports to improve their quality of life while going to college while also providing them with the opportunity to progress beyond their athletic career, which is the philosophy of college athletes and getting a college education.”
Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban is seen before a panel discussion on college sports in the East Room of the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, March 6, 2026. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)
Trump insisted on ‘saving college sports,’ even sign a decree setting new restrictions on payments to college athletes in July.
The President’s order prohibits athletes from receiving paid payments from third-party sources. However, the order placed no restrictions on zero payments to college athletes from third-party sources. It also requires schools to ensure they preserve resources for unpaid sports.
The SCORE Act was at the forefront of the roundtable. The vote was to take place in December but the vote was canceled shortly before. The White House approved the law, but three Republicans — Byron Donalds of Florida, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Chip Roy of Texas — voted with Democrats not to introduce the law. Democrats largely opposed the bill, urging House members to vote against it.
The SCORE Act would give the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption in hopes of protecting the NCAA from potential lawsuits over eligibility rules and would prohibit athletes from becoming employees of their schools. It prohibits schools from using tuition fees to fund zero payments.
President Donald Trump greets Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, left, as he arrives for a panel discussion on college sports in the East Room of the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, March 6, 2026. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)
Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., said the law “hurts” women’s sports and that strengthening Title IX “has to be part of the SCORE Act.” She also said the SCORE Act “represented a consolidation of what we have today, which is the SEC and the Big Ten,” getting much of the money raised by college athletics.
Trahan acknowledged that “maybe the SCORE Act is the right vehicle that we continue to refine,” showing some confidence in it and expressing his desire to work with the roundtable participants to make it a success. U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., said women’s sports would be “protected,” while Jim Phillips, the ACC commissioner, said 56 percent of ACC athletic scholarships have gone to women since the House case.
Tim Pernetti, commissioner of the Conference USA, said the SCORE Act does not solve the “economic crisis” in college athletics. Meyer admitted he didn’t like how collectives were still included in the SCORE Act, calling it a “cheat.”
“I think if the collective goes away, college sports will improve immediately,” Meyer said.
After deliberations, Trump said he would draft an executive order “based on common sense.”
“It’s going to allow the universities and the players to survive and a lot of people to be very, very happy,” Trump said.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable discussion on college sports in the East Room of the White House March 6, 2026 in Washington, DC. The Trump administration hosted the roundtable titled “Saving College Sports” with leaders from the Power Four conferences, media executives and former coaches. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
A month before Trump’s order, Wilken approved a settlement between the NCAA, its most powerful conferences and lawyers representing all Division I athletes. The agreement means the NCAA will pay nearly $2.8 billion in back damages over the next 10 years to college athletes who competed from 2016 to 2025. The settlement also allows college programs to pay athletes directly.
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