President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that says it “prohibits third-party, pay-for-play payments to collegiate athletes.” The order “does not apply to legitimate, fair-market-value compensation that a third party provides to an athlete, such as for a brand endorsement.
It’s unclear whether this will actually have any impact on college sports moving forward. With the recent House settlement, and the Yahoo Sports report that an agreement had been reached that NIL collectives would be treated as normal businesses, there are still many questions about the specifics of how NIL regulations will work moving forward, and whether this executive order will affect that reported agreement.
The NCAA released a statement on the executive order after it was issued.
“The NCAA is making positive changes for student-athletes and confronting many challenges facing college sports by mandating health and wellness benefits and guaranteeing scholarships, but there are some threats to college sports that federal legislation can effectively address and the Association is advocating with student-athletes and their schools for a bipartisan solution with Congress and the administration,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said in the statement.
The order, which the administration is saying will “save college sports,” also gives attention to non-revenue sports, seeking to support “expansion of opportunities for scholarships and collegiate athletic competition in women’s and non-revenue sports.”
It does that by requiring athletic departments with budgets of more than $125 million per year to provide more non-revenue scholarships this academic calendar year than it did the year before, and it “should provide the maximum number of roster spots permitted under the applicable collegiate rules.”
