Just about a week away from college football teams reporting to camps, President Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order governing how some payments are made to college athletes and to protect other sports that don’t generate lots of money.

The order claims to seek to clarify how universities pay their players, but it’s likely to further confuse an already chaotic landscape as university officials grapple with new revenue-sharing plans as part of a massive legal settlement that took effect on July 1.

The order will continue to allow athletes to market their name, image and likeness, better known as NIL, as long as those NIL deals remain “legitimate, fair-market value compensation … such as for a brand endorsement,” the order read in part.

But it prohibits “third-party, pay-for-play payments to college athletes,” the fact sheet reads. “The order provides that any revenue-sharing permitted between universities and collegiate athletes should be implemented in a manner that protects women’s and nonrevenue sports.”

Athletics department officials from Washington State University and Gonzaga University were not immediately available for interviews Thursday afternoon when the order was announced.

But U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, issued a statement in support.

“President Trump’s executive order is a major step toward restoring fairness in college athletics. It reins in NIL abuses, protects women’s and Olympic sports, and ensures any future revenue-sharing model preserves broad-based participation,” Baumgartner said in a news release. “I applaud the president for signing this executive order, and I look forward to working with him to save college sports.”

Trump’s directive comes on the heels of rules issued earlier this month by the College Sports Commission, which was created by the Southeastern, Big Ten, Big 12 and Atlantic Coast conferences to oversee a revenue-sharing system that was created by the July 1 House settlement.

In essence, the College Sports Commission is taking over the role that once was administered by the NCAA.

The settlement in House v. NCAA ended three separate federal-antitrust lawsuits which all claimed that the NCAA illegally was limiting the earning power of college athletes.

Since NIL payments began in 2021, collectives affiliated with specific schools inked deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars with athletes. They pool funds from donors and boosters and use them to license the NIL rights of specific athletes in exchange for appearances and social media posts.

As part of the suit, some of the $2.8 billion settlement will be distributed to athletes who played before they could take advantage of the current NIL rules.

But the suit also established a clearinghouse, called NIL Go, that must approve all third-party deals over $600, according to previous reporting by the Athletic.

The two main requirements for those deals are that they must be created for a “valid business purpose” and fit within the fair-market “range of compensation.”

The settlement also created a revenue-sharing system that allowed schools to directly pay their athletes up to $20.5 million in 2025. The CSC, created by the power conferences, was established to oversee that revenue-sharing program and it issued rules how schools were to issue those funds.

Earlier this month, the CSC issued guidance that immediately was met with backlash.

The guidance said “an entity with a business purpose of providing payments or benefits to student-athletes or institutions, rather than providing goods or services to the general public for profit, does not satisfy the valid business purpose requirement set forth in NCAA Rule 22.1.3.”

In response, attorneys Jeffrey Kessler and Steve Berman, who argued the case on behalf of the athletes, sent a letter to the College Sports Commission saying its guidance violated the terms of the House settlement and that the board should treat collectives the same as any other third-party business.

“While we want to continue to work together to implement the Settlement Agreement in a cooperative fashion, 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,” the letter said, according to the Athletic.

The CSC guidance also raised the ire of the Collective Association, a trade group of prominent collectives from around the country.

The CSC rules “regarding ‘true NIL’ and ‘valid business purposes’ is not only misguided but deeply dismissive of the collective organizations and the tens of thousands of fans and donors who fuel them,” the association wrote, according to the Athletic. “Any attempt to delegitimize the role collectives play in today’s collegiate athletics landscape ignores both legal precedent and economic reality.”

In regards to those ongoing revenue sharing controversies, Trump’s order directs the U.S. Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations board to clarify the status of student-athletes.

“The order directs the Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission to take appropriate actions to protect student-athletes’ rights and safeguard the long-term stability of college athletics from endless, debilitating antitrust and other legal challenges.”

(By Nathan Breisinger, Pittsburgh Sports Now) – President Donald Trump signed an executive order in an effort to protect college sports, namely “protect student-athletes and collegiate athletic scholarships and opportunities” on Thursday.

The executive order will prohibit third-party, pay-for-play payments to college athletes. It does not apply to legitimate, fair-market-value compensation that a third party provides to an athlete, which includes for a brand endorsement. The order aims to preserve student-athletes as amateurs and not employees.

BREAKING: President Donald Trump has signed a College Sports Executive Order that prohibits third-party, pay-for-play payments to collegiate athletes🤯

Titled: “President Donald J. Trump Saves College Sports”https://t.co/86LKCEhLIF pic.twitter.com/xcc5X3sUAJ

— On3 (@On3sports) July 24, 2025

The White House published a release titled, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Saves College Sports,” that features various points of the executive order.

Another key principal of the order is the protection of women’s and non-revenue generating sports. In part, revenue-sharing should be distributed in a manner that protects those sports.

In addition, “The Order directs the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify the status of student-athletes in order to preserve non-revenue sports and the irreplaceable educational and developmental opportunities that college sports provide…The Order directs the Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission to take appropriate actions to protect student-athletes’ rights and safeguard the long-term stability of college athletics from endless, debilitating antitrust and other legal challenges.”

The landscape of college athletics continues to change after the historic House v. NCAA settlement that was officially approved and took effect on July 1, 2025, allowing schools to share revenue directly with athletes and nearly $2.8 billion in backpay. Through the settlement, the NCAA and power conferences to create the newly-established enforcement arm, College Sports Commission.

Leaders from around college sports have been pushing for Congressional action and saw movement with the introduction of The SCORE Act, which is an “antitrust protection for the NCAA, power conferences and recently established enforcement arm, the College Sports Commission. The bill also features a preemption of state NIL laws, codifies the recently-approved House v. NCAA settlement and ensures that athletes are not employees,” per Pete Nakos of On3.

This story initially appeared on our partner site Pittsburgh Sports Now.

LAS VEGAS — In his first public comments since his tumultuous transfer from Tennesseeto UCLAin April, Bruins quarterback Nico Iamaleava said Thursday the decision to leave the Volunteers was “one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make.”

“My driving factor to come back home was my family, and I hope every Tennessee fan understands that,” Iamaleava said at Big Ten media days. “It was just a lot of drama, but man, I’m excited to be at UCLA.”

Iamaleava made multiple references to “false reports” about him while at Tennessee that centered on him and his representation wanting higher NIL compensation. The Long Beach, California, native remained steadfast that the main motivation for his move was not money but proximity to family. He said the reports made him feel “not comfortable in the position I was in.”

“I think just the outside world, in general, thinks that it was something that it wasn’t,” Iamaleava told ESPN. “Going back home was always in the back of my head. Just being back closer to my family; [it] took a toll on getting my family to Tennessee. It was just a lot of traveling.”

ESPN reported in April that Iamaleava’s representation had been pushing for his NIL contract — which had previously paid him $2.4 million per year and was set to pay him more than $8 million over his time at Tennessee — to increase to $4 million for 2025. Sources told ESPN that Iamaleava’s camp also reached out toMiami, Ole Missand Oregon, among others, about transferring after last season ended.

“I don’t speak on money matters,” Iamaleava said Thursday. “I’m just here for ball and school.”

Amid those NIL contract negotiations, Iamaleava did not show up to a Tennessee spring practice. Shortly after, coach Josh Heupel said the program was “moving on” from Iamaleava.

“I want to thank him for everything he’s done since he’s gotten here, as a recruit and who he was as a player and how he competed inside the building,” Heupel said at the time. “There’s no one that’s bigger than the Power T. That includes me.”

On Thursday, Iamaleava called the events of that week “crazy” and said the experience was “a lot” for him. After the split, Iamaleava quickly made his decision to transfer to UCLA. Quarterback Joey Aguilar, who had transferred to Westwood from Appalachian State in hopes of becoming the program’s starter, ended up transferring to Tennessee as a result.

“My mindset was going into compete with whoever was in there for the starting spot,” Iamaleava said of Aguilar. “I wish him nothing but the best. I know he’s going to get the best fans out there. Hopefully he gets to experience all the positive things that I experienced.”

Iamaleava redshirted in 2023 and threw for 2,616 yards and 19 touchdowns in his first season as a starter in 2024, leading Tennessee to 10 wins and a College Football Playoff appearance that ended in a first-round loss to eventual national championOhio State. Iamaleava is set to be the Bruins’ starter this season.

“The expectation is for me to be better,” Iamaleava said. “I got to get better.”

UCLA is coming off a 5-7 record in coach DeShaun Foster’s debut season. Foster said Thursday there was no hesitation about adding Iamaleava to the roster when the opportunity presented itself.

“We’re just excited to have a playoff quarterback,” Foster said. “Just being able to come back home and be comfortable and being in a familiar environment, I think the sky is the limit.”br/]

President Trump stands with Ohio State Head Coach Ryan Day (R) as he welcomed the 2025 College Football National Champions from Ohio State University to the White House during a ceremony on April 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump’s new executive order seeks to ban “pay-for-play” deals and requires schools to provide scholarships in women’s and Olympic sports — and it dangles the threat of withholding federal funds to schools as an enforcement mechanism.

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Win McNamee/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — President Trump has taken aim at college sports with a new executive order signed Thursday that seeks to empower federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education, which disburses funds to public universities, to help enforce new provisions on athletic scholarships and “pay-for-play” licensing deals for athletes.

The order directs the nation’s largest athletic departments to maintain certain numbers of scholarships for women’s and Olympic sports. And it seeks to rein in the lucrative name, image and likeness deals — known as NIL — that have dramatically transformed athlete compensation in recent years.

“The future of college sports is under unprecedented threat,” the order says. “A national solution is urgently needed to prevent this situation from deteriorating beyond repair and to protect non-revenue sports, including many women’s sports, that comprise the backbone of intercollegiate athletics, drive American superiority at the Olympics and other international competitions, and catalyze hundreds of thousands of student-athletes to fuel American success in myriad ways.”

Whether the order’s provisions will pass legal muster is an open question, legal experts told NPR. Still, it represents the president’s increasing interest in sports issues and especially college athletics. 

“This may not be a binding legal framework — but it’s absolutely a signal: that the federal government, and now presidential politics, are increasingly willing to intervene in the future of college sports,” said Noah Henderson, a professor of sports management at Loyola University Chicago. 

Trump’s order comes the month after the approval of the House settlement, a class action legal agreement that has opened the door for Division I college athletic departments to pay players directly, upending the long-standing NCAA tradition of amateurism.

Jared Jones of the LSU Tigers celebrates with fans after defeating the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers to win the NCAA College World Series baseball finals last month in Omaha, Neb.

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That settlement, which allows schools to compensate athletes up to an initial cap of $20.5 million, has raised anxieties about the future of non-revenue sports, including most women’s and Olympic sports, as schools divert resources to compensate athletes in order to stay competitive in the revenue-generating sports of football and basketball.

“Absent guardrails to stop the madness and ensure a reasonable, balanced use of resources across collegiate athletic programs that preserves their educational and developmental benefits, many college sports will soon cease to exist,” the order reads.

Among the “guardrails” the order seeks to impose are requirements that the highest-earning college athletic departments provide more scholarship opportunities in non-revenue sports than they did in the 2024-2025 school year.

That provision would apply to around 30 of the nation’s largest athletic departments, according to data from 2024.

In a hint of how its provisions might be enforced, the order directs the Department of Education — which the Trump administration is in the process of dismantling — to use the disbursement of federal funds, Title IX enforcement, and interstate commerce laws to influence schools. Most of the nation’s largest athletic departments belong to public universities, such as the Ohio State University and the University of Texas.

Those are “pretty extreme actions,” said Sam Ehrlich, a professor at Boise State University who tracks collegiate sports litigation. “Is this just a threat or something that is actually going to lead to something? Will the executive branch actually insert themselves into these situations to enforce this? And what will be the unintended consequences if it does get followed up on?” he added.

Pay-for-play deals for players’ NIL rights are also a target of the Trump administration’s order. The NCAA has allowed such deals since a 2021 Supreme Court decision, which have come to dominate the financial landscape of Division I college sports.

Athletes, especially football and basketball players, now earn thousands or even millions of dollars per year in NIL deals, some of which are connected to a marketing campaign but others are effectively compensation for playing.

NIL deals that are pay-for-play are “improper and should not be permitted by universities,” the Trump order says, specifically carving out deals that carry a “fair market value” for a brand endorsement or other legitimate purpose.

College athletic officials have lobbied Washington for years to help rein in the wave of litigation that has reshaped college sports over issues of compensation and eligibility.

The executive order aligns with many of the priorities stated in recent years by the NCAA, the governing body of college athletics, whose long-standing policies around eligibility and compensation have been deeply eroded over the past decade by litigation.

“The Association appreciates the Trump Administration’s focus on the life-changing opportunities college sports provides to millions of young people and we look forward to working with student-athletes, a bipartisan coalition in Congress and the Trump Administration to enhance college sports for years to come,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement.

The NCAA has long lobbied for federal legislation to help protect it from litigation and will continue to do so, he added.

But Trump’s signing of Thursday’s order could be a risk to “deepen partisan divides in college sports rather than create the consensus needed for long-term reform,” said Henderson — especially in the Senate, where the Republican majority falls seven votes shy of the 60 votes required to defeat a filibuster on new legislation. 

The five “power conferences” in college sports were quick to applaud the executive order. In a joint statement from the Southeastern, Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 Conferences, they said: “We hope Congress sends federal legislation to President Trump’s desk as soon as possible.”

The order also directs numerous federal agencies to wade into the fray. The National Labor Relations Board is asked to issue rules and guidance “with respect to clarifying the status of collegiate athletes” to ensure they continue to not be legally considered employees for the purposes of labor law. Officials at the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are directed to prepare for involvement in future litigation over college sports.

By Will Weissert, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order mandating that federal authorities clarify whether college athletes can be considered employees of the schools they play for in an attempt to create clearer national standards in the NCAA’s name, image and likeness era.

Trump directed the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify the status of collegiate athletes through guidance or rules “that will maximize the educational benefits and opportunities provided by higher education institutions through athletics.” The order does not provide or suggest specifics on the controversial topic of college athlete employment.

The move comes after months of speculation about whether Trump will establish a college sports commission to tackle some of the thorny issues facing what is now a multibillion-dollar industry. He instead issued an order intended to add some controls to “an out-of-control, rudderless system in which competing university donors engage in bidding wars for the best players, who can change teams each season.”

“Absent guardrails to stop the madness and ensure a reasonable, balanced use of resources across collegiate athletic programs that preserves their educational and developmental benefits, many college sports will soon cease to exist,” Trump’s order says. “It is common sense that college sports are not, and should not be, professional sports, and my administration will take action accordingly.”

There has been a dramatic increase in money flowing into and around college athletics and a sense of chaos. Key court victories won by athletes angry that they were barred for decades from earning income based on their celebrity and from sharing in the billions of revenue they helped generate have gutted the amateurism model long at the heart of college sports.

Facing a growing number of state laws undercutting its authority, the NCAA in July 2021 cleared the way for athletes to cash in with NIL deals with brands and sponsors — deals now worth millions. That came mere days after a 9-0 decision from the Supreme Court that found the NCAA cannot impose caps on education-related benefits schools provide to their athletes because such limits violate antitrust law.

The NCAA’s embrace of NIL deals set the stage for another massive change that took effect July 1: The ability of schools to begin paying millions of dollars to their own athletes, up to $20.5 million per school over the next year. The $2.8 billion House settlement shifts even more power to athletes, who have also won the ability to transfer from school to school without waiting to play.

At Big Ten Conference football media days in Las Vegas, Purdue coach Barry Odom was asked about the Trump order.

“We’ve gotten to the point where government is involved. Obviously, there’s belief it needs to be involved,” he said. “We’ll get it all worked out. The game’s been around for a hundred years and it’s going to be around 100 more.”

The NCAA has been lobbying for several years for limited antitrust protection to keep some kind of control over this new landscape — and avoid more crippling lawsuits — but a handful of bills have gone nowhere in Congress. Trump’s order makes no mention of that, nor does it refer to any of the current bills in Congress aimed at addressing issues in college sports.

NCAA President Charlie Baker and the nation’s largest conferences both issued statements saying there is a clear need for federal legislation.

“The association appreciates the Trump administration’s focus on the life-changing opportunities college sports provides millions of young people and we look forward to working with student-athletes, a bipartisan coalition in Congress and the Trump administration,” said Baker, while the conferences said it was important to pass a law with national standards for athletes’ NIL rights as soon as possible.

The 1,100 universities that comprise the NCAA have insisted for decades that athletes are students who cannot be considered anything like a school employee. Still, some coaches have recently suggested collective bargaining as a potential solution to the chaos they see.

It is a complicated topic: Universities would become responsible for paying wages, benefits, and workers’ compensation and schools and conferences have insisted they will fight any such move in court. While private institutions fall under the National Labor Relations Board, public universities must follow labor laws that vary from state to state and it’s worth noting that virtually every state in the South has “right to work” laws that present challenges for unions.

Trump’s order also:

• Calls for adding or at least preserving athletic scholarships and roster spots for non-revenue sports, which are those outside football and basketball. The House settlement allows for unlimited scholarships but does impose roster limits, leading to a complicated set of decisions for each program at each school that include potential concerns about Title IX equity rules. Trump said “opportunities for scholarships and collegiate athletic competition in women’s and non-revenue sports must be preserved and, where possible, expanded.”
• Asks the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to “preserve college athletics through litigation” and other actions to protect the rights and interests of athletes — a stance that could influence ongoing lawsuits filed by athletes over eligibility and other issues.
• Directs White House staff to work with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to protect the collegiate pipeline feeding Team USA. College sports programs produce around three-quarters of U.S. Olympians at a typical Summer Games, but some are on uncertain footing as schools begin sharing revenue with athletes and the lion’s share going to football and basketball.

AP National Writer Eddie Pells contributed.

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