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When President Donald Trump hosts an event in the Oval Office and opens things up to questions from the media, as he did on Friday while hosting members of the 1980 Miracle on Ice team, you get a lot of dumb questions.
I mean, I get that opportunities to ask the president a question are at a premium, but with Jim Craig and Mike Eruzione on hand, it’s time to ask about Venezuela?!
President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd before the start of the NFL Super Bowl 59 football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
Anyway, at least one member of the press asked a question that made a lot of sense and it had to do with NIL.
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It is appropriate, as at the time the Miracle on Ice team played, the Olympics were strictly amateur and most of the team was plucked from various collegiate rosters.
Had they played more than 40 years later, they might have rolled in some of that NIL dough.
But as the president noted — and Sen. Ted Cruz agrees — the current state of the NIL is simply not sustainable and could cause serious damage to college athletics and even the Olympics.
United States President Donald Trump, with the 1980 US Olympic men’s ice hockey team, holds a bill to honor the team in the Oval Office of the White House on December 13, 2025 in Washington, DC (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
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“I think it’s a disaster for college sports,” President Trump said. “I think it’s a disaster for the Olympics because, you know, we’re losing a lot of teams. The colleges are cutting a lot of their — they’d call them kind of ‘minor’ sports, and they’re losing them in numbers no one can believe. They were really training grounds, beautiful training grounds, hard-working, wonderful young people. They were training grounds for the Olympics.
“And a lot of these sports that coached so well would win gold medals because of that. Those sports don’t exist because they put all their money into football. And by the way, they put too much money into it, into football.”
President Trump noted that the top-performing athletic programs are not making enough money to sustain themselves, given the rate at which they pay highly sought-after players.
U.S. President Donald Trump stands with Ohio State Head Coach Ryan Day as he welcomes the 2025 College Football National Champions from The Ohio State University to the White House during a ceremony on the South Lawn in Washington, District of Columbia, April 14, 2025. Ohio State won the national championship by defeating Notre Dame 34-23. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
“They’re putting all their money in, and I know something about it,” President Trump said. “They won’t be able to stop. You have a university president [saying]”I’m telling you, sir, we give a guard $7 million, we’re going to win the national championship,” and they’re going to give them seven, then they’re not going to win it.
“And even if they win it, colleges can’t afford to pay the kind of salary that you hear about.”
