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Trump slashes NIL funding for student athletes.
President Trump signed the “Saving College Sports” executive order on July 24 to cap the money college athletes earn in Name, Image and Likeness (NIL). NIL gives college athletes the ability to earn profit from their personal brands. The creation of NIL dates back to Sept. 30, 2019, when California passed Bill 26, legislation that protected collegiate athletes against retribution from their universities if they agreed to having endorsement money in college, starting in 2023.
Following the ruling, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) began implementing its NIL regulations. In 2019, the NCAA board of governors decided that athletes should be permitted to earn endorsements.
Following up in 2021, brought up a lawsuit to the United States Supreme Court regarding NIL. Titled Alston v. NCAA, the lawsuit challenged the NCAA’s restrictions on compensation for student-athletes. The core argument centered on whether these restrictions, particularly those related to education-related benefits, violated federal antitrust laws. On July 1, 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Alston, granting student athletes the right to participate in paid NIL contracts. From then on, several more states, including Florida and New Jersey, continued to pass similar NIL laws.
These laws opened the doors for players to make brand deals and endorsements in ways they had never before. In the 2024-2025 college sports season, the highest paid athletes were Arch Manning, a quarterback for the University of Texas; Cooper Flagg, a forward for Duke University Basketball; Carson Beck, a quarterback for the University of Miami; and Livvy Dunne, a gymnast from Louisiana State University. Manning was estimated to make $6.5 million from NIL, Flagg made $4.8 million, Beck made $4.3 million and Dunne made $4.1 million.
Trump’s executive order aimed to sustain competition in women’s sports and sports that do not generate as much revenue as others, along with increasing opportunities for scholarships. Trump wants the players to receive a fair market value of their NIL and for guardrails to be created for the sports that bring in the most money. Trump called the NCAA’s lack of guardrails “a mortal threat to most college sports” in the order. Essentially what Trump’s order would achieve would be limitations for third parties participating in “pay for play” deals, where an athlete receives direct compensation from a booster or school for participating in their sport. This would mean that there would be a limit to the amount of money college athletes could earn.
Disallowing “pay for play” payments would also give more room to women’s and non-revenue sports. For these types of sports, the executive order allows for the same amount or an increase in the number of scholarships. Since athletes in men’s basketball and football earn more revenue on average, this part of the order calls for the same funding to be allocated across all athletic programs. “It is the policy of the executive branch that opportunities for scholarships and collegiate athletic competition in women’s and non-revenue sports must be preserved and, where possible, expanded, including specifically as follows with respect to the 2025-2026 athletic season and future athletic seasons,” stated the executive order.
But the amount of scholarships each sport gets all depends on the amount of revenue they generate. For example, the NCAA allows Division 1 football teams to award 85 scholarships, however Division 1 soccer teams can only award 14 scholarships. Occasionally, a school will cut scholarship spots from sports that do not bring in revenue, or non-revenue sports, to allot that money to sports that do. Trump’s order states that schools that bring in over $50 million should be forced to maintain scholarship spots for non-revenue sports. The order also states that the schools with athletic departments that generated more than $125 million in revenue throughout the 2024-25 season should give more scholarships to non-revenue sports.
At times, schools will downsize smaller sports in an effort to save money. Trump’s order states that the athletic departments that generated at least $50 million in revenue throughout the 2024-25 season should offer the maximum number of roster spots for non-revenue sports that is permitted by the NCAA. On the other hand, the athletic departments that had less than $50,000,000 throughout the 2024-25 season will not be forced to abide by thr rules stated in the order.
The executive order also states that the National Labor Relations Board and the Secretary of Labor Board will indicate if collegiate athletes are employees or students. Previously, collegiate athletes were known to be employees. The changes that these boards make “will maximize the educational benefits and opportunities provided by higher education institutions through athletics,” claimed the order.
Although NIL is relatively new, the upcoming changes are expected to have a significant impact on the future of college sports, according to NBC News.