Trump Says ‘Whole Educational System’ Could Go Out of Business Unless College Sports Issue is Fixed
“Virtually everyone in the room agreed that the industry needs to be saved.”
Trump is obviously right about this. Education is on a collision course with reality. In this case, he was referring to college sports and the issue of paying players.
CBS News reports:
At college sports roundtable, Trump says “whole educational system” could go out of business unless fixed
President Trump predicted the destruction not just of college sports but the entire U.S. collegiate system unless the industry is fixed quickly — something some sports leaders who joined him Friday at a White House summit agreed could only happen by raising more money to pay players.
Trump suggested he would write an “all-encompassing” executive order within a week in hopes it would spark action from Congress. He also said he expected the order to trigger a lawsuit that could put the issue back in front of the court system that approved industry-changing payments to players for their name, image and likeness.
The new system has left many schools drowning in red ink from paying players, while rules governing those payments are only slowly taking hold.
“The whole educational system is going to go out of business because of this,” Trump explained, when asked why he was devoting time to college sports with the war in Iran and other issues dominating the headlines.
During the meeting in the East Room — which included lawmakers, conference commissioners, the president of the NCAA and CEO of the U.S. Olympic team, but none of the NCAA’s 550,000 college athletes — Trump said, “I thought the system of scholarships was great.” He was harkening to the recently ended era in which players received little to nothing beyond the financial aid.
He said the “horrible” court settlement that led to the current system — a settlement that virtually everyone in the room agreed to — “threw the sports world and … the college athletic world into ‘tithers.'”
Virtually everyone in the room agreed that the industry needs to be saved from the spiraling costs associated with the onset of NIL payments and that a bill called the SCORE Act, which has struggled to pass the House, could be the base of any change. House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested there were now enough votes to pass it.
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“The whole educational system is going to go out of business because of this,” Trump explained, when asked why he was devoting time to college sports with the war in Iran and other issues dominating the headlines.”
Count me high among the askers.
Trump is busy decimating the university system’s educational grants for racial and political apostasy, while holding out moneybags to their sports programs. Do we really need to convert our former outlets of higher education into Junior NFLs/NBAs/etc.?
And once again, NONE of this is even remotely related to a delegated federal power.
I think there would be better hobbies for the president to take up. In the little spare time he has.
I upvoted you because I largely agree with what you said. On the other hand, Trump is a dealmaker, and I would guess he knows a lot more about the financial aspects of running sports businesses than I do. If he can use the prestige of the Presidency to pull the interested parties into a room and hammer out an agreement that works for all concerned without involving the Federal gov’t, I’m ok with that. (Sadly, with proclamations of executive orders
On the gripping hand, I think sports betting is just as big (or bigger) a danger for both college and pro leagues as well as individuals. Let’s put just as much effort into eliminating that.
“If he can use the prestige of the Presidency to pull the interested parties into a room and hammer out an agreement that works for all..”
I am reminded of the apt adage “Just because you can, doesn’t mine you should.”
But the players, who are the other side of this, aren’t in the room.
Hey, if the Higher Indoctrination business collapses, I think that would be great. Then, it could be rebuilt to become Higher Education once again.
My thinking too.. It makes no sense to claw back funds with one hand and strew them out with the other,
How could the “whole educational system” could go out of business over this? Are the sports teams seriously generating the money needed for education?! Are they not getting enough money from tuition and their endowments and all the other sources of income they have?! How can a whole college depend on a mere pastime and entertainment for its income? Talk about the tail wagging the dog!
College athletics must be limited to intramural sports and health/diet/well-being classes. The NFL and NBA can create their own minor league systems that train physically gifted individuals.
Having become a more active follower of the UK football system,* with the pyramid scheme (in this case, good), it makes sense to me that the US should take the top 80 Div-1 college teams and develop a similar system, 16 teams at the 5 levels, with top 2 going up and bottom 2 going down between each level every year. Basketball could similarly do 30 games a year and they could also do march madness each year just as the UK system does the FA cup. Phil Knight pretty much already owns U of Oregon, so why not make it official. And then education could get back to education. The concept of student-athlete is so perverted these days that it is a complete joke. As we used to say about Dook in the 1980’s, the coaches call him Johnny D, but his professors call him Johnny D-.
But it will never happen because College Presidents are addicted to the sports money. IIRC, the University of Maryland had to pay the ACC $50M in order to seceed to the Big-10, which is the Big-16 or maybe more these days. ACC is back up to 16 teams as well. On their own they have started towards the 16 team / division needed to support the pyramid structure.
* “Welcome to Wrexham” is a pretty good watch. I honestly don’t think that it could have been scripted better even if all of Disney’s talent were behind it. And it’s real! They are in contention for going up yet another level after doing back to back to back promotions, which is already like 1:1000 odds. Imagine a documentary that is probably better than Ted Lasso.
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