Narcissist and His Ego Save College Sports, Again

Again demonstrating a capacity for oafishly inserting himself across multiple theaters, President Grifty McGrievance issued an executive order last week aimed at college athletics. You might have missed it, what with the moon mission, the U.S. “excursion” into Iran, disrupted global markets, belligerent and profane calls to re-open the Strait of Hormuz, turfing his Attorney General, and attending a Supreme Court hearing that he hopes will result in the elimination of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. In short, a busy week. 

This week’s drama pushed it even further into the background. Titled “Urgent National Action to Save College Sports,” the order mixes high-minded claims about the need for a fix along with some specific measures. The order came almost a month after Trump convened a White House roundtable to discuss the issues around the current system. The two-hour confab included several dozen sports and political figures under the auspices of “Somebody Needs to Do Something.” 

Trump issued an order last July, titled “Saving College Sports,” addressing some of the same issues and the need for reform, though none of the measures from that order were implemented or even made a dent in the conversation. Asked at the March get-together what would be different about a new executive order, he replied that it would be more comprehensive and detailed. 

That’s debatable, but the new EO speaks to the transfer process and eligibility, payments to athletes for name, image and likeness, and raises the specter of financial penalties for schools that don’t comply with the rules. Athletes would have five years to complete four years of eligibility, a rollback to the old system. They would be permitted a one-time transfer with immediate eligibility. A second transfer would require an athlete to sit out competition for a year, though an athlete who completed a four-year graduate degree would be permitted immediate eligibility after a transfer. 

The new order also would end NIL collectives, the donor-backed organizations that mushroomed after players were allowed to be paid. However, many of those collectives have wound down or phased out after the House vs. NCAA settlement that permitted schools to directly pay athletes up to $20.5 million, a move that has stressed and stretched athletic budgets. 

Schools have begun to find a way around that and supplement athlete pay by outside deals with media rights outfits and separate companies. The new order also comes with the possibility of withholding Federal funds for schools that don’t adhere to the rules, a favored Trump administration tactic that’s been used in the battle against diversity initiatives and supposed discrimination. Here, it’s again worth noting that an executive order is often a recommendation with government letterhead. It’s not a law, it doesn’t replace a law, it doesn’t provide an antitrust exemption – a big ask on the NCAA wish list – and it’s not immune to court challenges. 

President Cranky Pants admitted as much at the March meeting, where he toggled between discussion of issues and gripes about “radical” judges who upended the good old days and those awful Democrats who won’t pass any legislation he endorses. “I’d like to go exactly back to what we had and ram it through a court,” he said that day. 

That said, there is bipartisan desire for reform and guidelines that would provide stability, both in terms of player movement and finances, though there is broad disagreement on how to get there. Old guard advocates continue to look longingly at the questionably named SCORE Act (Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements), which pre-empts state laws surrounding NIL payments in favor of a national system, provides the NCAA limited antitrust protection against lawsuits, and prevents college athletes from being classified as employees. The legislation has worked its way through Congressional committees and might pass a tight House of Representatives vote strictly along partisan lines. But the measure is likely DOA in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes and has zero Democrat buy-in. 

Democrats don’t want to roll back the freedoms and compensation that athletes have won, and many believe they are due, nor do they want to cede control back to the NCAA. The rub with Trump Saves College Sports, Part Deux is that courts have already ruled several measures illegal. For example, a Federal judge ruled that the NCAA’s old one-time transfer policy was restrictive, and the Dept. of Justice and the NCAA settled on a system that essentially gave athletes free agency. 

And good luck enforcing, or even defining, the order’s call for “a prohibition on improper financial activities regarding student-athletes, including collectives or other entities or methods used to facilitate third-party, pay-for-play payments.” One passage in the new EO is particularly galling, a kind of tutorial in gaslighting and hypocrisy disguised as well-meaning and crucial. It reads: Absent a comprehensive national solution, therefore, the escalating financial demands to succeed in football and basketball combined with the significantly loosened rules governing eligibility, transfers, and pay-for-play schemes may force curtailment of women’s and Olympics sports, and may even jeopardize the overall financial well-being of universities with which the Federal Government has important financial relationships. Universities are important defense research contractors for the Department of War, important medical research contractors for the Department of Health and Human Services, and important scientific research contractors for the National Science Foundation. The health of the university system is integral to the Federal Government’s basic functioning. 

Yessiree, science and research are so vital to society that the Trump administration has spent the past fifteen months slashing budgets and gutting departments in those areas, as well as bullying schools and agencies that don’t conform to their standards. A snapshot: approximately fourteen percent of STEM Ph.D.s in the Federal workforce, more than 10,000 people, left or were laid off since Trump took office, according to Science magazine. The Centers for Disease Control has lost 25 percent of its workforce and faces a 41-percent cut in the latest budget proposal. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is in line for a $1.6-billion whack from its $6-billion budget, targeting climate research and what the administration refers to as “Green New Scam” programs. 

Trump last year asked that lawmakers cut spending on science programs at NASA in half (though legislators left much of the funding in place). He recently asked for a $5 billion budget cut to the National Institute of Health. The National Science Foundation and Environmental Protection Agency would see their budgets cut by 50 percent if Trump’s 2027 budget proposal is approved. Budget cuts to USAID meant that Johns Hopkins University lost $800 million in grants targeted for health programs, and approximately 7,800 science-related grants across multiple sectors were cut. 

It’s hard not to conclude that Trump’s latest foray into college athletics is anything more than another episode of performative grandstanding by a jabbering fossil who believes he’s entitled to govern by decree and force of personality, whose moves are dictated by whim and whatever and whoever crosses his path at any given moment. He’s the light and the heat in his own solar system, and thanks to 77 million of our fellow voters all of us get burned.