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Dramatic changes in college sports have drawn the attention of the White House, and two prominent men from the world of college football are set to co-chair President Donald Trump’s commission on college athletics—an effort to get the train back on the tracks amid mounting issues in the collegiate model. It’s too early to know […]
Dramatic changes in college sports have drawn the attention of the White House, and two prominent men from the world of college football are set to co-chair President Donald Trump’s commission on college athletics—an effort to get the train back on the tracks amid mounting issues in the collegiate model.
It’s too early to know how former Alabama coach Nick Saban and Texas billionaire businessman Cody Campbell will co-lead the commission and who will be on it. As Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s NIL legislative effort launched in 2023 languishes and administrators still await the House settlement’s final approval, patience has long run thin for substantive change in college athletics. One power conference official told CBS Sports they didn’t need any more college sports insiders in a group like this; rather, they wished for outsiders who can bring fresh ideas and aren’t lifers.
“We don’t need a committee to tell us what’s wrong with college sports, we know that,” the official said. “We need this group to cut through bureaucracy and actually get stuff done.”
Saban and Campbell have shared their positions on several pertinent issues recently, including NIL, the transfer portal, conference realignment, multimedia deals and how they would improve an unwieldy collegiate athletics system.
Both also have relationships with the Trump administration. Saban, who won six national titles at Alabama and retired after the 2023 season, bent Trump’s ear last week to discuss college sports legislation during a graduation ceremony at the University of Alabama. Campbell, the chairman of Texas Tech Board of Regents, hosted Vice President JD Vance at a Fort Worth Luncheon in September during the run-up to the presidential election. He’s connected in the state’s Republican politics and is an appointee of Texas Governor Greg Abbott to the Texas Tech Board of Regents. Campbell has made multiple six-figure donations to Abbott, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and the Republican national committee.
A former Texas Tech football player who’s made a killing in the energy industry, Campbell has been heavily involved in the NIL space since 2022, when he founded The Matador Club, Tech’s NIL collective. Fueled by the deep pockets of its supporters, the collective helped secure the nation’s No. 2 transfer portal class this spring. Tech’s spend in the December portal alone was close to $10 million, according to sources, and that’s before a spring haul that included Stanford edge David Bailey, who sources say signed for over $2.5 million.
“We should be the most talented team in the Big 12 this year,” Campbell told CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd two months ago.
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Portal gold mine aside, Campbell has remained critical of the business of college sports, penning multiple columns for The Federalist regarding the dangers of conference realignment weakening college sports, and NIL’s adverse effects on Olympic sports and the transfer portal.
“If we completely professionalize college sports, further extract and further concentrate the excess revenue provided by football and men’s basketball, college athletics will disappear for the majority of the Americans who have enjoyed and benefited from it for generations,” Campbell wrote on April 14.
Campbell and Saban have mostly echoed the concerns of conference commissioners and NCAA leadership, while drawing allies in Congress like Cruz, who is reportedly drafting a bill on reforming college sports. Campbell and Saban, however, have also criticized the NCAA.
Let’s look at where Campbell and Saban stand on the pertinent issues in college sports, and how their past might shape their future as co-chairmen of the presidential commission on college sports.
Campbell and Saban have been critical of the slow march toward the professionalization of college athletics as players in football and basketball sign multi-million-dollar deals and smaller programs struggle to keep up in the NIL era.
Saban has appeared in Washington, D.C., multiple times to speak to legislators. In May 2024, he appeared alongside Cruz on Capitol Hill to address a committee on the effects of NIL and free agency in college athletics.
“It’s whoever wants to pay the most money, raise the most money, buy the most players is going to have the best opportunity to win,” Saban said at the hearing. “I don’t think that’s the spirit of college athletics.”
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Collegiate leaders have descended on Capitol Hill several times to lobby for legislation to protect the collegiate enterprise from litigation tied to NIL and revenue-sharing. The NCAA spent $450,000 in the first quarter of 2025 to lobby the Republican-controlled Congress, according to Front Office Sports.
Like many NCAA and conference leaders, Campbell has called for antitrust protection from Congress. “There must be a single set of rules and laws to govern college sports across the country – not a patchwork of 34 different state laws, as we have today,” he wrote, in reference to NIL laws, in a column published in April.
The NCAA has lost or settled multiple lawsuits involving student-athletes’ money-earning rights since 2020. The NCAA and five power conferences are also close to settling a $2.8 billion antitrust lawsuit that will also allow schools to share up to $20.5 million in revenue annually with players.
Concerns about financial inequality further dividing college athletics has also been at the forefront of lobbying efforts.
“My only hope is that leadership can emerge and consensus can be found in Washington before it’s too late,” Campbell wrote in April. “There are solutions, and the problems can be solved in a bipartisan manner. It is only a matter of will, engagement, and attention from well-intentioned individuals who wish to perpetuate the legacy and impact of the great American institution of Intercollegiate Athletics for all of its participants – not just for a privileged few.”
Interestingly, nearly one month before Cruz voiced concerns about college football’s lack of antitrust protection in the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, Campbell penned a column on the subject’s effect on college football.
Campbell believes college football’s inclusion in the Sports Broadcasting Act could pave the way for multiple conferences to pool their media rights to sell to TV partners, which would “install a media revenue distribution system that would significantly increase total revenue and would promote parity.” He also believes a group deal could reset conferences, allowing for more alignment that make “geographic sense.”
“Because the conferences must compete with each other for media deals, they are incentivized to organize into leagues that span multiple time zones, and cover the full width of the continent,” Campbell wrote. “This has resulted in the loss of traditional rivalries and has ballooned travel expenses and time away from the classroom, especially for the non-revenue sports.”
Cruz criticized the NFL for bending the SBA’s guidelines by encroaching on high school and college football with the recent scheduling of NFL games on Black Friday, a day that has historically been tied to college football. The SBA does not allow the NFL to broadcast games on Friday night or Saturdays from the second weekend in September through the second weekend in December. The NFL recently began scheduling games on Fridays and Saturdays outside those windows, when high school and college football games are still being played late in the season.
“The NFL has tiptoed up to this rule,” Cruz said Tuesday at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing.
The threat of weakened Olympic sports in this new era has been of particular concern for Campbell.
The businessman wrote in March that he is concerned the power conferences may soon worsen things if allowed to wield more power in Washington.
“The top 40 most-viewed college football programs already hog 89.3 percent of TV eyeballs and 95 percent of media cash. Give the Autonomy Four (especially the Big Ten and SEC) a free antitrust hall pass, and they’ll build a super conference, a gilded monopoly that starves everyone else of the revenue needed to provide opportunity to more than 500,000 student athletes per year. Of 134 FBS schools, 90 or more could lose funding for Olympic sports, women’s teams, and even football itself (not to mention the FCS and Division II). Local towns could crumble. Smaller colleges would fade. College sports would shrink from a national treasure to an elite clique, and countless dreams would be crushed.
“This isn’t about left or right; it’s about right and wrong. The NCAA is broken, but handing the keys to a few fat cats is worse. America thrives on competition, not cozy cartels blessed by D.C.”
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Texas is navigating college football’s most volatile era with a clear strategy for long-term dominance. From looming SEC scheduling changes to the tangled mess of NIL, here’s how Texas plans to lead through the chaos. [Sign up for Inside Texas TODAY and get the BEST Longhorns scoop!] Shop Academy Sports + Outdoors for top brands […]
Texas is navigating college football’s most volatile era with a clear strategy for long-term dominance. From looming SEC scheduling changes to the tangled mess of NIL, here’s how Texas plans to lead through the chaos.
[Sign up for Inside Texas TODAY and get the BEST Longhorns scoop!]
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Joe and Eric talk about the upcoming House settlement and how it’s likely to be met with approval by Judge Claudia Wilken. The settlement will force athletic departments to totally rethink how they operate, and make them determine which sports deserve much of the “publicity rights” money. A brief discussion about how the reported $22 million is divvied up follows, and the subject ends with Texas being in a good position and in favor of players getting paid.
However, paying those players will look different and it also won’t cost $35-40 million to field a football team. Eric and Joe go over why a recent report with that figure missed a significant amount of details.
SEC spring meetings are next week, and the two go over likely topics to be deliberated on in Destin. Finally, the two poke a little fun at Ohio State before explaining the dates the team has on its calendar. The report date for summer conditioning is in a few weeks, and that’ll lead to 7-on-7 that informs how players will perform in the upcoming season.
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BROCast: Men of Westwood’s Ken Graiwer Talks NIL Market, UCLA Basketball’s Transfer Season In this edition of the BROCast, Ken Graiwer of Men of Westwood talked with Dave and Tracy about the NIL market in college basketball this cycle, and UCLA’s approach to the transfer season. VIDEO: AUDIO: Download mp3 View in iTunes 247Sports Logo […]
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The Trump administration’s move to bar international students from attending Harvard could have wide-ranging implications for the university’s eclectic athletics program. While a federal judge Friday issued a temporary restraining order that blocked the Department of Homeland Security’s edict regarding international students at Harvard, the school’s athletes may not have much time to decide their […]
The Trump administration’s move to bar international students from attending Harvard could have wide-ranging implications for the university’s eclectic athletics program.
While a federal judge Friday issued a temporary restraining order that blocked the Department of Homeland Security’s edict regarding international students at Harvard, the school’s athletes may not have much time to decide their next steps, depending on their sport.
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Harvard’s athletic department includes 42 Division I sports teams, the highest number in the nation. A review of the university’s online rosters for the 2024-25 season found 182 athletes across all sports listed international hometowns.
Athletes who have earned a degree can enter the NCAA’s transfer portal at any time and be immediately eligible after transferring. At Ivy League schools, which do not allow athletes to participate beyond four years, it is fairly common for athletes who still have NCAA eligibility remaining to go to non-Ivy schools as graduate transfers.
NCAA rules allow undergraduate athletes to transfer and be immediately eligible to compete at a new school if they enter their names in the transfer portal during sport-specific periods.
Transfer windows have come and gone for sports that have concluded their seasons. For example, the basketball portal period was March 24 to April 22 for men and March 25 to April 23 for women. Hockey’s transfer window was March 30 to May 13 for men and March 16 to April 29 for women.
Harvard officials did not respond to requests for comment.
The NCAA declined to comment on the situation, but it could be facing questions about what to do if the school’s international athletes want to transfer because of the ongoing dispute between the university and the Trump administration.
A spokesperson from the Ivy League Athletic Conference also declined to comment.
Harvard’s men’s basketball roster lists two undergraduates with hometowns from outside the United States. The women’s basketball roster also lists two players with foreign hometowns. The leading scorer on Harvard’s men’s hockey team is Mick Thompson, a first-year player and one of several Canadians listed on the roster.
For many sports still in progress, such as baseball, softball and lacrosse, NCAA transfer windows will remain open for several weeks.
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NCAA policy allows it to waive transfer windows under certain circumstances to address events outside an athlete’s control. For example, the NCAA has historically granted waivers for immediate eligibility to athletes competing at schools where their sports programs have shut down. But it is unclear if a similar standard would apply if Harvard’s international students had to leave the school, or wanted to, because of the ongoing dispute.
Though the policy change is on hold due to the temporary restraining order, the Trump administration’s latest tactics have some former Harvard athletes concerned about the future.
In a letter to Harvard on Thursday, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said that her department was revoking the university’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification.
Noem said the decision was a result of Harvard’s “refusal to comply with multiple requests to provide the Department of Homeland Security pertinent information while perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ policies.”
British rower David Ambler graduated from Harvard in 2020. Four years later, he helped Great Britain win bronze in rowing at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Ambler, 27, said attending Harvard was a life-changing experience, something he’d wish all international students could have an opportunity to do. The fear that the Trump administration’s efforts could negate that is genuine.
“From my side, I’m disappointed for future students and future student athletes that there is a possibility that they wouldn’t have the same opportunity that I did,” Ambler said Friday. “I’ve seen the value it’s provided me, and, looking forward, it’s one thing I would like other people to have.”
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Ambler said Harvard’s worldwide draw allowed him to meet many different people with varying perspectives on life, a strength of the nation’s oldest university.
“The ability to bring people together from everywhere creates a learning environment that creates, frankly, one that is unparalleled,” he said. “Harvard, sporting-wise, is an excellent university and has a range of sports where it’s routinely competing in the top of the country or it’s sending multiple athletes to the Olympics.”
Former tennis player James Blake spent his freshman and sophomore years at Harvard in 1998 and 1999 before turning professional. Blake, who rose to become No. 4 in the world during his career, said he’s spoken to several other former Harvard athletes this week about the Trump administration taking aim at the university.
“It seems pretty obvious it’s trying to do damage to Harvard because of a petty fight from the Trump administration,” Blake said Friday. “There’s supposed to be a Republican mantra of ‘less government,’ and they’re imposing government on a private institution that’s been around since 1636, which has been one of the absolute bastions of higher education. It’s sad it even has a chance of going through, and if it does, it severely hinders the opportunities of international students and student athletes to get the best education possible.”
During his years at Harvard, Blake said the Crimson men’s tennis team finished ranked No. 17 and No. 19 in the country. He had four international teammates on those teams. Without them, Blake said, Harvard wouldn’t have been as successful.
Now, the reality that international students may not be able to compete at Harvard has galvanized former alumni like Blake.
“In today’s political landscape, a lot of people maybe bite their tongue or try not to get into it because it’s so polarized,” he said. “This is the thing that was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. Now’s the time to stop biting my tongue. This is way, way over the line. You’re using basically what is a really petty fight to try and harm a lot of people.”
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Caryn Davies, a two-time Olympic gold medalist rower and Harvard athletics Hall of Famer, is part of a WhatsApp thread with over 300 alumni in it. Davies said she usually doesn’t open the chat, but in the wake of Friday’s news, she did. As she scrolled through, she saw back-and-forths between so many active members of the group discussing the potential fallout of the situation.
Davies, 43, said being able to compete with or against international talent made her a better rower, student and person.
“Most college athletes don’t get the chance to compete internationally. Most people won’t be going to world championships and making friends from other countries there,” she said. “University is the place they’re going to be doing that, for the first time for many people. It just makes me sad to think that the incoming freshman class might not get that opportunity to have that kind of experience.”
(Photo: Adam Glanzman / Getty Images)
It’s difficult to get college coaches to speak candidly on much of anything. That’s why we like Athlon’s annual tradition of obtaining anonymous quotes from coaches from around the Big Ten containing candid thoughts about other programs in the league. It’s bulletin board material — without a name attached. What do Big Ten football coaches […]
It’s difficult to get college coaches to speak candidly on much of anything.
That’s why we like Athlon’s annual tradition of obtaining anonymous quotes from coaches from around the Big Ten containing candid thoughts about other programs in the league.
It’s bulletin board material — without a name attached.
What do Big Ten football coaches think about Indiana and second-year head coach Curt Cignetti?
The quotes below come from Athlon Sports’ 2025 College Football Preview print magazine. Order your copy today online, or pick one up at retail racks and newsstands nationwide.
Here are the four quotes Athlon published regarding Indiana:
“Maybe the biggest culture change at a program in the history of the sport. IU is a case study for putting your money where your mouth is. They invested heavily in NIL and support. Cig [Curt Cignetti] is a fantastic coach, obviously, but he wouldn’t come without that commitment. That’s how they succeeded immediately.”
“I think they’ve improved the O-line enough to stay in games against top-level, physical defenses.”
“They’re leaning on the portal again in the secondary because they’re still a ways off on true, top-end depth for this league.”
“Everyone is asking who the next Indiana is, but there’s no real reason why it isn’t Indiana again. Will they win as many games? Probably not, but they’re going to be in the hunt for a playoff spot again.”
Athlon publishes quotes like this around this same time each year. They’ve generally provided a fairly insightful look at what is to come.
There was cautious optimism about Indiana in Cignetti’s first year, and clear signals IU had hit rock bottom in 2023.
Below is what was said ahead of the past two seasons.
AHEAD OF THE 2024 SEASON…
“There’s a lot of talk about the program for the first time since any of us can remember.”
“Cig [Curt Cignetti] is a really good hire; it shows that the school wants to be competitive and respectable in football. They’re taking football seriously in NIL, too.”
“They brought in a few studs from James Madison, and they’ve worked the portal well.”
“The competition level in this league is still above them, but they should look more talented, especially on offense. The MAC quarterback [Kurtis Rourke] is pretty solid.”
“If you’re setting reasonable Year 1 expectations, I’d look for them to build an offensive identity to help recruiting.”
AHEAD OF THE 2023 SEASON…
“Probably the most uncertain program in the league going into the season. They have to win some big games to keep Tom [Allen] around, and that doesn’t look likely with the roster they’ve got.”
“Culturally, this is a hard place to win at, stay winning and make the ‘football’ changes needed to keep it going. Plus, Tom is a ‘bullhorn’ kind of coach, lots of hollering, and that as a trend seems to have waned a lot in recent years.”
“They were really high on Connor Bazelak last season, and now’s he at Bowling Green. That tells you a lot about the state of the program.”
“They’ve been working a lot in the portal and losing a lot too. That’s not a good sign.”
“They aren’t making enough noise in high school recruiting. If you’re going to stay consistent at a school like this, you can’t rely on the portal. You need to be a development system, and they haven’t pulled in enough talent to do that.”
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