Name, image and likeness is taking college sports by storm, and it might take the government to slow it down.

After meeting with Alabama head coach Nick Saban Thursday, President Donald Trump is reportedly considering an executive order to regulate NIL deals in college athletics.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Saban told Trump the influx of money has hurt college sports. Saban does not want to halt NIL payments but wants them “reformed.”

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President Donald Trump shakes hands with legendary Alabama football coach Nick Saban before delivering a commencement address to University of Alabama graduates at Coleman Coliseum. (Gary Cosby Jr./Tuscaloosa News)

In an appearance on Fox News Channel last year, Saban urged Congress to step in and make NIL “equal across the board.”

“And I think that should still exist for all players, but not just a pay-for-play system like we have now where whoever raises the most money in their collective can pay the most for the players, which is not a level playing field. I think in any competitive venue, you want to have some guidelines that gives everyone an equal opportunity to have a chance to be successful,” he said.

Saban said the NCAA “can handle” NIL and whatever changes are necessary, but Congress “needs to” add “national legislation.”

President Donald Trump delivers remarks to graduating students at Coleman Coliseum at the University of Alabama May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

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“Now, we just have the state legislation — and every state is different — that would protect the NCAA from litigation once we establish guidelines for the future of college athletics. But the litigation is what got us to this point right now,” Saban said. “We have to have some protection from litigation. I don’t know if it’s antitrust laws or whatever. 

“I’m not versed enough on all that to really make a recommendation. But I know we need some kind of federal standard and guidelines that allows people to enforce their own rules.”

The NCAA last week passed rules by which colleges would be allowed to pay athletes as a result of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit settlement expected to go into effect this summer.

Earlier this week, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said “if anyone” can help regulate NIL, “it’s President Trump.”

Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, waves to the crowd as he speaks with Republican Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., at Bryant-Denny Stadium for a football game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Georgia Bulldogs in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Sept. 28, 2024. (Gary Cosby Jr./Imagn Images)

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Saban introduced Trump Thursday at an event for Alabama’s graduating students, where Trump gave a speech.

In the speech, Trump raved about Alabama’s athletic programs, saying the school is a place “where legends are made.”

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Hamilton College’s Dana Schwartz ’26 (Cape Elizabeth, Maine/Cape Elizabeth HS) and Keira Rogan ’28 (Saratoga Springs, N.Y./Schuylerville Central School) earned 2025 New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Women’s Track & Field All-Conference honors on Wednesday, April 30 when the conference released its end-of-season award winners.

Schwartz and Rogan are all-NESCAC for the first time. The top three finishers in each individual and relay event at the 2025 NESCAC Championships at Wesleyan University’s Andersen Track on April 26 were all-NESCAC performers.

Schwartz finished in second place in the javelin throw with a distance of 39.78 meters (130 feet, 6 inches). Her performance broke her own team record for the fifth time this season.

Rogan was runner-up in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 10:28.60 and took third place in the 5,000-meter run in 16:48.61. Rogan’s time in the 5,000 eclipsed a team record held by Maggie Hanson ’02 since 2000 and was ranked 22nd in Division III.

 

President Donald J. Trump is considering issuing an executive order aimed at how college athletes can be compensated after he met with Nick Saban during a trip to Tuscaloosa, Ala., earlier this week, according to multiple reports.

The Wall Street Journal first reported news of Trump’s executive order consideration.

Trump and Saban, Alabama’s former football coach, met Thursday night after the president gave the commencement address at the university. Saban told Trump the professionalization of big-time college sports — with some athletes now being paid hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars — has hurt the enterprise and created an uneven playing field, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, the former Auburn coach, also said he talked with Trump about name, image and likeness compensation for college athletes Thursday.

Had a great conversation with President Trump last night about the importance of establishing national standards for NIL.

College football is the heart and soul of America — but it’s in danger if we don’t level the playing field. pic.twitter.com/GlUycduFxY

— Coach Tommy Tuberville (@SenTuberville) May 2, 2025

The White House did not immediately respond to The Athletic’s request for comment.

The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous White House officials, said the president instructed aides to begin studying what could be in an executive order. What that might entail and whether it would provide stability for college sports is unclear.

“The challenge with any ruling or order is that there are multiple levels that would need to be addressed. This is not just an antitrust issue; it’s also a labor and employment issue. It’s also a Title IX issue. There’s also contract issues, right of publicity issues. There’s a lot in there,” said Gabe Feldman, a sports law professor at Tulane.

Trump has already signed an executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, which prompted the NCAA to change its policies. The Trump administration has also directed the Department of Education to investigate schools, such as Penn, that have allowed transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports for Title IX violations.

“We have seen the president be aggressive in many different areas, including transgender athlete participation, so I don’t think it would be a shock if he tried to intervene here,” Feldman said.

A congressional aide told The Athletic that an executive order might not stabilize the college sports system, which requires legal certainty and a limited safe harbor from litigation. Legal protections and the pre-empting of state NIL laws can only be addressed through congressional legislation.

“We’ve got all these different states making rules about what they can and can’t do,” Saban said last September at a panel in Dallas alongside NCAA president Charlie Baker. “The federal government should do something to create something where each state doesn’t have a different law for what you can do.”

Rep. Michael Baumgartner, a freshman Republican from Washington who recently introduced a bill to disband the NCAA and reshape conferences by geography, told The Athletic last month that he hopes Trump will get involved in the college sports issue. The NCAA was formed out of action by Teddy Roosevelt’s White House.

“I think it’s going to take presidential involvement to get something done,” Baumgartner said. “I think there is an opportunity with President Trump. He obviously is a sports fan. It’s going to take some leadership there because it’s just in so many different committees, and so it’ll be a challenge to (pass something) unless there’s presidential involvement.”

College sports are on the cusp of a landmark change as the NCAA and major conferences await final approval of the settlement of three antitrust lawsuits that threatened to bankrupt the association and leagues.

If U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken approves the terms of the deal, which includes $2.8 billion in damages to former and some current college athletes, schools that opt into the agreement will be permitted to share up to $20.5 million in revenue with their athletes.

The NCAA and conferences have until Wednesday to respond to Wilken’s latest order, demanding some changes to the deal. A final ruling will likely come within a few weeks, and most in college sports are still confident she will sign off.

Even with the settlement agreement, the NCAA and conferences have acknowledged the need for a federal law to bolster a new system.

College sports have been in tumultuous reform for several years since the NCAA lifted its rules banning athletes from making money from sponsorship and endorsement deals in 2021. The NCAA has been virtually helpless in defending itself from antitrust lawsuits since a unanimous Supreme Court ruling against the association in 2021 in a case about athlete compensation.

Baker, conference commissioners, athletic directors, coaches and even some athletes have been lobbying lawmakers in Washington to pass a federal law to help regulate college sports since even before the NCAA changed its NIL rules. In recent years, though, the conversation has shifted from paying athletes to antitrust protections, athlete employment and pre-empting state laws, which create a patchwork of rules for college sports.

“I think the biggest thing they’re looking for is the antitrust exemption because then that allows the NCAA to put in rules that allow them to have things like a salary cap and the restrictions on third-party NIL compensation without getting sued for antitrust violations,” said sports law attorney Mit Winter. “And transfer rules as well because that’s become a big thing now, too. Every week there’s a new lawsuit related to eligibility rules, and that’s an antitrust issue as well.”

Only a bill passed by Congress could address those issues. Numerous bills and drafts have been introduced, announced or floated by members of both houses of Congress, and there have been a dozen public hearings since 2020, when state lawmakers began forcing the NCAA’s hand by passing myriad laws that allowed college athletes in their states to be compensated. The four Power 4 commissioners again visited Washington last month to lobby for support.

None of the bills has gone anywhere yet.

“The NCAA is making positive changes for student-athletes and confronting many challenges facing college sports by mandating health and wellness benefits and guaranteeing scholarships, but there are some threats to college sports that federal legislation can effectively address, and the Association is advocating with student-athletes and their schools for a bipartisan solution,” said Tim Buckley, NCAA vice president of external affairs.

Saban, who coached Alabama to six national championships before retiring last year, has often said he supports college athletes benefiting financially from the revenue their sports generate.

“But the system and the way we’re doing it right now, there’s very little name, image and likeness in college athletics,” Saban told the panel in Dallas last year. “It’s just pay for play.”

(Photo of Donald Trump and Nick Saban at Alabama’s graduation: Gary Cosby Jr. / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (theACC.com) – NC State’s Chloe Negrete was named the Atlantic Coast Conference 2025 Gymnastics Scholar-Athlete of the Year and headlines the sport’s All-ACC Academic Team, the league announced on Friday.
 
Negrete was named the ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year for Gymnastics for the second consecutive season. The graduate student out of Frisco, Texas, graduated in May of 2023 with a bachelor of science in sports management with a minor in psychology. She is set to complete her graduate degree in parks, rec, tourism and sport management with graduate certificates in sport and entertainment venue management and leadership and volunteer management in May of 2025.
 
Negrete closed out her collegiate career with 24 podium finishes and 13 individual titles in the 2025 season, recording 13 scores of a 9.900 or higher. This year, Negrete was named the ACC Gymnast of the week once and the ACC Specialist of the week four times to help claim the 2025 Women’s Collegiate Gymnastics Association (WCGA) Southeast Gymnast of the Year title and a spot on the WCGA All-American Second Team for beam. She was also named an American Athletic, Inc. (AAI) Award nominee for the second year in a row, which is awarded to the most outstanding gymnast in the nation for their dedication, leadership and excellence in the sport.
 
Thirteen student-athletes who earned All-ACC honors this season also secured spots on the academic team, highlighted by ACC Gymnast of the Year Mya Lauzon (California), Specialist of the Year Lali Dekanoidze (North Carolina) and Newcomer of the Year JoJo Valahovic (North Carolina).
 
All six ACC gymnastics programs were represented on the All-ACC Academic Team with Clemson, North Carolina and Stanford leading the conference with 12 student-athletes each, followed by NC State and Pitt with 11, and California with seven.
 
The ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year awards were established in September of 2007 to be awarded annually to the top junior or senior student-athlete in their respective sports. Candidates for the awards must have maintained a 3.0-grade point average for their careers, as well as a 3.0 for each of the last two semesters.
 
Academic requirements for selection to the All-ACC Academic Team are a 3.0-grade point average for the previous semester and a 3.0 cumulative average during one’s academic career. In addition, student-athletes must compete in at least 50 percent of their team’s contests.
 
The full list of the 2025 Gymnastics All-ACC Academic Team can be found below:

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. – Due to more wet weather set to hit the Capital Region on Saturday, the Union College softball team has moved up the time of Saturday’s Senior Day doubleheader against the University of Rochester. The first pitch of game one is set to be thrown at 10:00 a.m., followed by game two at approximately 12:00 p.m.

For the most up-to-date information on all schedule changes, check UnionAthletics.com and follow Union Athletics on X, Facebook and Instagram.

Last updated 5/2/25, 10:00 am