Trump vows executive order to ‘fix’ college sports NIL payments ‘mess’

Published Fri, Mar 6 20264:34 PM ESTUpdated Fri, Mar 6 20266:42 PM EST
Dan Mangan
@in/danmangancnbc/
@_DanMangan

Key Points
• President Donald Trump vowed to issue an executive order to “fix” what he called the “mess” in college sports created by NIL payments to football and basketball players, and the House v. NCAA legal case settlement allowing direct payments to athletes by schools.
• “I will have an executive order within one week,” Trump said at the Saving College Sports Roundtable at the White House.“If this doesn’t work, college sports will be destroyed. Women’s sports will be destroyed.”
• Attendees included NCAA President Charlie Baker, former Alabama football coach Nick Saban, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and House Speaker Mike Johnson — but no student athletes were invited.
• Johnson said Republicans in Congress would continue efforts to pass the SCORE Act, which would preempt state regulation of name, image, and likeness payments.


U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a round table on collegiate sports in the White House in Washington, D.C., March 6, 2026.
Nathan Howard | Reuters

President Donald Trump on Friday vowed to issue an executive order to “fix” what he called a “mess” in college sports created by NIL payments to football, basketball and other players and a legal settlement that allowed universities to directly pay their athletes. ... Trump said he fully expected such an order would be challenged in the courts, but added that he hoped there would be a judge who would support the order’s goal. ... “We’ll be sued, and we’ll go before the courts, and here we go again,” he said.

Trump’s comments about the name, image and likeness payments system, the House v. NCAA legal case settlement, and other issues came at the Saving College Sports Roundtable at the White House. ... Attendees included NCAA President Charlie Baker, former Alabama football coach Nick Saban, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. ... No student-athletes were invited to the event. Groups representing college players and pro athletes have opposed efforts that would restrict the rights that college players have under the current NIL structure.

“I will have an executive order within one week,” he said. “Which will solve every conceivable problem in this room.” ... “If this doesn’t work, college sports will be destroyed,” Trump said. “Women’s sports will be destroyed.”

Johnson suggested that Trump allow Republicans in Congress to try to address the purported problem by continuing to try to pass the so-called SCORE Act, which the NCAA has backed. That bill, among other things, would preempt state regulation of NIL payments. ... The meeting came less than a year after a federal judge signed off on the House v. NCAA settlement, which allowed colleges to spend up to $20.5 million per year, with annual increases of that amount, to directly pay their athletes.

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Trump Participates in a Saving College Sports Roundtable

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