President Donald Trump has made his dissatisfaction with the state of college sports clear numerous times over the past few years. After years and years of seeing lawmakers try and fail to re-regulate college sports, he has decided to do something himself.
According to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports, President Trump is slated to sign a new, sweeping executive order that will address a slew of controversial issues in college sports. The order will reportedly limit college player movement, place a cap on player eligibility, address funding for Olympic sports and regulate NIL collectives among other things. Colleges that don't comply will reportedly face a loss of funding.
"The order intends to limit athlete transfer movement, cap player eligibility, require funding requirements for women and Olympic sports, and regulate NIL collectives. As an enforcement lever, past iterations of the order relied on the reduction of a university’s federal funding — an incentive for schools and conferences to abide by the concepts," Dellenger wrote.
Rock solid or built on sand?
Despite the sweeping nature of the executive order, there are doubts over whether the order will be able to survive the slightest legal challenges, let alone be enforceable. Dellenger noted that supporters of the executive order and even President Trump himself are expecting it to be challenged as soon as it's enacted.
"Executive orders are subject to legal scrutiny, especially those that disregard court orders. In fact, courts have struck down several of the president’s orders over the last several months, rendering them moot and unenforceable. In a White House roundtable event last month, the president himself predicted that any order would be legally challenged. He said that he “hoped” for a favorable judge."
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Simply put, until regulation of college sports is codified into law at the federal level, there really isn't a ton that the President can do through an executive order than can't simply be struck down by a judge.
If President Trump wants to restore college sports to a form that he prefers, he simply needs to rally his political allies and get a piece of legislation done through Congress.
