President Trump intends to sign an executive order in the coming days establishing national standards for the NCAA’s Name, Image and Likeness program, which has reaped millions of dollars in revenue for top college athletes, according to multiple people familiar with his plans.

College athletes can now make millions before ever going pro thanks to a set of NCAA rules enacted in 2021 that relaxed previous restrictions on being compensated for playing or accepting endorsement deals. Student athletes can now profit from merely showing up to play, or from jersey sales, autographs or serving as spokespeople for companies ranging from global brands to car dealerships near campus.

Mr. Trump is engaging on an issue that has quickly reshaped and, in many ways, roiled college athletics after a House subcommittee on Tuesday advanced a bill along party lines that would establish national standards for sponsorships. The legislation, called the “SCORE Act,” would supersede a patchwork of state laws regulating Name, Image and Likeness, or NIL.

While the bill has bipartisan support, there is also bipartisan concern it would give too much power to the NCAA and do little to protect the interests of college athletes.

The NCAA’s decision in 2021 to let athletes earn money from NIL deals followed years of political and legal pressure on the collegiate sports giant. For decades, the NCAA imposed steep limits on compensation for student athletes, which it argued were necessary to insulate college athletics from commercial pressures. But opponents — including many college athletes — had long argued the rules unfairly cut them out of the millions in revenue that sports like football and basketball can bring in for universities. 

Last month, in a massive shakeup, a federal judge signed off on a legal settlement in which the NCAA agreed to let schools pay student athletes directly.

Trump has regularly engaged with professional and college sports of all sorts since and even before retaking office. Whether attending the storied Army-Navy football game last December or stealing the spotlight at last Sunday’s Club World Cup championship, the future of sports is a frequent presidential concern.

The White House didn’t immediately return requests for comment late Tuesday. 

Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark broke down in tears in the final seconds of Tuesday’s game against the Connecticut Sun after appearing to tweak a groin injury. She reached for her leg after an apparent non-contact issue.

Clark was bringing the ball up the court with about 40 seconds left to play when she kicked it inside to Kelsey Mitchell for a layup. As Connecticut called timeout, the former Iowa star was visibly in pain and reaching for her left leg as she headed toward the basket.

Once she got to the bench, Clark put a towel over her head and was visibly emotional off the bench. Replays showed she pulled up after the backdoor pass and reached for the inside of her right leg as the whistle blew.

Clark played 28 minutes in Tuesday’s 85-77 victory over the Sun, totaling 14 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. However, her shooting struggles continued as she went just 4-for-14 from the field, including 1-of-7 from three-point distance. Her lone make from downtown came in the fourth quarter.

Entering Tuesday, Clark made just 29.5% of her shots over her last six games, with the lone bright spot coming in a 19-point showing in a loss to the Las Vegas Aces. Last time out against the Dallas Wings, Clark had 14 points, but shot 4-for-12 from the field.

However, Clark is keeping things in perspective amid the rough stretch. She said it’s all about staying confident and getting just one or two shots to fall. Then, hopefully, she’ll turn things back around.

“I still probably didn’t shoot it as good as I would have liked, but I feel like it’s coming,” Clark said, via the Indianapolis Star’s Chloe Peterson. “Just trying to continue to get my legs under me. And, like I said, pregame, like I feel like I’m a couple shots away from, like, having a really good game.”

Despite the slump, Caitlin Clark is in the midst of a huge second season in the WNBA despite dealing with injuries throughout the year. She entered Tuesday’s game averaging 16.7 points to go with 9.0 assists and 4.8 rebounds. In addition, she’s preparing for her first WNBA three-point contest when the game comes to Indiana this weekend.

The Fever are scheduled to take on the New York Liberty on Wednesday at Barclays Center. That will mark the final game before the All-Star break.

CLEMSON — The current era of college football has created numerous challenges for coaching staffs across the country.

One of the biggest comes on the recruiting trail. Make no mistake, recruiting has always been a cutthroat business, but at the end of the day, many recruitments tended to boil down to relationships. With the advent of NIL and the new revenue-sharing model that just began on July 1, relationships are starting to take a backseat for many in what has become a more transactional process.

At Clemson, Dabo Swinney has always strived to make his program different. The two-time national title-winning head coach has cultivated a culture inside his program that tends to really resonate with a lot of recruits. However, in this era, that’s not always enough.

For example, just over a week ago, Clemson missed on five-star DL Bryce Perry-Wright, who had been trending towards the Tigers for more than a year. A recruit who visited Clemson far more than any other school.

Defensive tackles coach Nick Eason, who was heavily involved in that recruitment, went in-depth on the difficulties coaches experience recruiting in today’s landscape. While he wasn’t referencing any player specifically, Eason readily admits those big boy battles are now harder to win, but at the same time, he still fully believes in the process at Clemson.

“We just have to be intentional about who we are,” Eason said during Clemson Football’s Media Outing at the Allen Reeves Football Complex on Tuesday. “Not compromising the things coach Swinney has built this program on. And that is graduating our players, equipping them with tools for life, making sure they have a great college experience, and obviously winning a championship.”

And for Eason, the foundation of that process will always start and stop with the relationships.

“You can not compromise giving up the relationships because of what is going on in college football,” Eason added. “I am still going to be intentional about building relationships. It is still a relationship business.”

Some schools have begun routinely handing out seven-figure deals to players fresh out of high school. Players who have never taken a snap at the collegiate level.

With the new revenue-sharing model now in place, Clemson is much better positioned to compete for highly-rated recruits in this new era. The Tigers did recently beat Texas head-to-head for a four-star defensive end in Dre Quinn. However, Swinney, nor any of his assistants, will ever compromise the culture he has worked so hard to build.

“That is just kind of where the landscape of college football is at with NIL,” Eason said. “But it is my job to just continue to be who I am and continue to build the relationships, because the relationships do matter. Who you work with matters. Who you are playing with matters. Coaching matters. And who you are getting coached by matters.”

Eason has been on the winning side of enough of those kinds of recruitments to know Clemson’s approach still works. In the last class, Eason landed five-star Amare Adams, winning out over Georgia and South Carolina. Two classes before that, he beat out Alabama for five-star Peter Woods.

However, he also knows he won’t win them all. No school ever does.

“Control the things I can control. That is all I can control,” Eason said. “How I treat people. How I build relationships and how I recruit. How I am intentional in knowing what our program is about. Just continuing to extend that message that comes from our head coach. That is all I can control.

“I can’t control the NIL world, and that isn’t my job to do that. My job is to love on the players I currently have, continue to recruit elite talent, and let the chips fall where they may. Because this is Clemson. A lot of players, recruits and their families are still looking for what we are about, and that can help us win national championships.”

Photo courtesy of Bart Boatwright

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Today’s something good starts with long lines outside Doak Campbell Stadium.

Florida State University football players like FSU linebacker Justin Cryer and student athletes handed out bags full of groceries and gave away school supplies.

“Just with how things are in today’s age of NIL college football, you know it’s we can, we can lose track of that. So support for us to stay grounded and to just get back with our community because we know they come out every day in this in the stadium and cheer loud for us, and it’s important that we just show that we care and now we’re here for them,” Cryer said.

More good news:

The Norvell’s Keep Climbing Family Foundation teamed up with Second Harvest on Tuesday to make the giveaway possible.

More than 150 families received food and supplies at the event.

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Less than two weeks after terms of a multibillion-dollar college sports settlement went into effect, friction erupted over the definition of a “valid business purpose” that collectives making name, image and likeness payments to players are supposed to have.

The new College Sports Commission sent a letter to athletic directors last week saying it was rejecting deals in which players were receiving money from collectives that were created solely to pay them and don’t provide goods or services to the general public for profit.

A lead attorney for the players responded by saying those instructions went against settlement terms and asking the CSC to rescind the guidance.

“This process is undermined when the CSC goes off the reservation and issues directions to the schools that are not consistent with the Settlement Agreement terms,” attorney Jeffrey Kessler wrote to NCAA outside counsel Rakesh Kilaru in a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

Yahoo Sports first reported details of the letter, in which Kessler threatens to take the issue to a judge assigned with resolving disputes involved in the settlement.

Kessler told the AP that his firm was not commenting on the contents of the letter, and Kilaru did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment.

Yahoo quoted a CSC spokesman as saying the parties are working to resolve differences and that “the guidance issued by the College Sports Commission … is entirely consistent with the House settlement and the rules that have been agreed upon with class counsel.”

When NIL payments became allowed in 2021, boosters formed so-called collectives that were closely tied to universities to work out contracts with the players, who still weren’t allowed to be paid directly by the schools.

Terms of the House settlement allow schools to make the payments now but keep the idea of outside payments from collectives, which have to be approved by the CSC if they are worth $600 or more.

The CSC, in its letter last week, explained that if a collective reaches a deal, for instance, for an athlete to appear on behalf of the collective, which charges an admission fee, that collective does not have a “valid business purpose” because the purpose of the event is to raise money to pay athletes, not to provide goods or services available to the general public for profit.

Another example of a disallowed deal was one an athlete makes to sell merchandise to raise money to pay that player because, the CSC guidance said, the purpose of “selling merchandise is to raise money to pay that student-athlete and potentially other student-athletes at a particular school or schools, which is not a valid business purpose.”

Kessler’s letter notes that the “valid business purpose” rule was designed to ensure athletes were not simply being paid to play, and did not prohibit NIL collectives from paying athletes for the type of deals described above.

To prevent those payments “would be to create a new prohibition on payments by a NIL collective that is not provided for or contemplated by the Settlement Agreement, causing injury to the class members who should be free to receive those payments,” Kessler wrote.

AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

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