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President Donald Trump hosted a college sports roundtable on Friday to explore solutions to key challenges, including NCAA authority; name, image and likeness (NIL) problems; collective bargaining; and managerial concerns.
Athletic officials in attendance included NCAA President Charlie Baker, former Alabama head 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 colleges,” Trump said to start the roundtable. “The amount of money being spent and lost by otherwise very successful schools is astounding in a short period of time. It’s only going to get worse. We need to save college sports and, I think, the high schools.
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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 freshman. We’re seeing things we’ve never seen before. College players who don’t want to go pro because they make more money in college,” he added.
Trump said there has been an “inability to set 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-related benefits violated antitrust laws.
“It’s crazy. Only Congress can deliver a permanent solution,” Trump said.
Trump noted that he had no intention of going back to athletes who were not paid.
“Although it’s not the worst idea,” he admitted. “But I think a lot of people would overwhelm me on that.”
Later, Trump said he would “just go back to what you had, let a judge say you can’t do what you appeal and you win at some point. For what you had — what a great system. Everybody was happy.”
Saban said it has become “impossible” to help athletes become more successful on a personal level in today’s era.
“People, instead of making decisions about creating value for their future, they were making decisions about how much money they could make at what school to go to or transfer to,” Saban said.
“I think we need to come up with a system, and obviously we need to do it with the leadership of the president and probably with Congress as well … to allow student-athletes in all sports to improve their quality of life while in college, but still allow them to advance themselves beyond their athletic careers, which is what the philosophy of college athletes and getting a college education has always been about.”
Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban is seen before 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)
Trump has even been adamant about “saving college sports.” sign an executive order set new limits on payments to college athletes in July.
The President’s order prohibits athletes from receiving pay-to-play payments from third-party sources. However, the order imposed no restrictions on NIL payments to college athletes from third-party sources. It also requires the schools to maintain resources for the non-revenue-generating sports.
The SCORE Act was at the forefront of the round table discussion. It was scheduled for a vote in December, but the vote was canceled shortly before. The White House approved the act, but three Republicans — Byron Donalds of Florida, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Chip Roy of Texas — voted with Democrats not to bring the act to the floor. Democrats have largely opposed the bill and urged members of the House to vote against it.
The SCORE Act would grant 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 NIL payments.
President Donald Trump greets Rep. Mike Johnson, left, as he arrives for 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)
Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., said the action “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,” which gets a boatload of the money college athletics raises.
Trahan agreed that “maybe the SCORE Act is the right vehicle that we continue to fine-tune,” showing some confidence in it and expressing his desire to work with those at the roundtable to make it successful. The US Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., said women’s sports would be “protected,” while Jim Phillips, the ACC commissioner, said 56% of the ACC’s athletic scholarships have gone to women since the House case.
Tim Pernetti, commissioner of the American Conference, said the SCORE Act does not solve college athletics’ “financial crisis.” Meyer admitted he didn’t like how collectives were still included in the SCORE law, calling it “cheating.”
“I think if the collective goes away, college sports will be better immediately,” Meyer said.
After deliberation, Trump said he would write an executive order “based on a great deal of common sense.”
“It’s going to let colleges survive and players survive and let a lot of people 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 on March 6, 2026 in Washington, DC. The Trump administration held the roundtable, titled “Saving College Sports,” with executives 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 settlement means the NCAA will pay close to $2.8 billion in back injury 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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