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President Donald Trump’s plan to return college sports to a pre-revenue era is not feasible, a participant in last week’s White House summit has argued.
Last Friday, Trump decried the rulings by Judge Claudia Wilken that led to the adoption of name, image and likeness (NIL) deals and eventually gave athletes a share of the revenue.
‘A person who knew nothing about sports made a ruling, and she turned the whole thing upside down. And it’s really a disgrace, if you want to know the truth. A damn disgrace,’ he said.
The President then advocated for scrapping sports’ adoption of payments, saying, ‘In some ways, I’d like to just go exactly back to what we had and ram it through a court if we have to, because I’m not sure you’re ever going to come up with a system that’s comparable to what you had.’
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail before the beginning of the Big East Tournament on Wednesday, conference commissioner Val Ackerman cast doubt on that becoming a reality.
‘I don’t think so,’ Ackerman said when asked if Trump’s vision of eliminating NIL and revenue share is possible. ‘I think the horse is out of the barn as it relates to the athletes sharing in some portion of the revenue.
President Donald Trump proposed rolling back the ruling allowing college athletes to be paid
Big East Conference commissioner Val Ackerman doesn’t believe Trump’s idea is possible
‘I mean, that’s really what caused this. There’s so much money in the system now that it was inevitable, in my judgment, that the athletes were going to say, “Hey, wait a minute. A scholarship of free education isn’t enough.” I don’t like the way that devalues the education.
‘But given the money in the system, what coaches make, et cetera, I think it was inevitable that we were going to get to this point.’
Ackerman continued: ‘I don’t think being wistful about the old days is where we need to be. I think what we need to do is figure out, Okay, here’s where we are now, and can we take what we have and the circumstances we have and just create a more sensible system that puts some structure back into this, creates some limits.
‘I think limits are important here because universities aren’t pro-sports teams. They are not built for the cost structures that we have now in many levels.
‘And so if there’s a way to restore some structure around the realities we have now, I think that’s the better way, that’s the best place to end up, more realistic as well.’
The meeting also discussed Olympic sports and women’s sports and how under-funded they are at schools with high-level football.
Ackerman, the former WNBA commissioner who now leads a conference with no football, agreed with those concerns and hopes for increased protection of those sports.
‘Schools know they have Title IX obligations, which is important, and I think [the SCORE Act] would be a base layer of protection. But there’s really a lot of unknowns, I think, around this,’ she said.
Trump attacked Judge Claudia Wilken and his own Supreme Court over their rulings which paved the way for college athletes to be paid. He also repeatedly mentioned his desire to return things back to the way they were and only pay athletes smaller sums than they are now.
Trump also expressed his intention to sign an executive order to control college sports
‘So yes, the answer is it’s a concern for everybody. We don’t have football revenues in our league, so we’re not at the same level as the big football league, which we consider peers in basketball.
‘They have more money than we do, but they also have a higher cost structure because of the football expenses. So again, it’s unclear to us right now where this all shakes out as this system continues to evolve.’
During the roundtable, Trump threatened to sign an executive order intervening in college sports because he believes the Democratic Party would not pass the SCORE Act in either the House or the Senate.
While Trump did not specify what the executive order would do, he mentioned it would be a ‘common sense’ and ‘very well thought out’ solution. The President also openly challenged the American court system.
After hearing that the Supreme Court ruled against the NCAA’s opinion that athletes shouldn’t be paid, Trump then attacked the highest court in the country.
‘Hopefully a judge, who’s a real judge, a compassionate judge with common sense would get it approved… let’s see if we can get it through the court system,’ Trump said.
‘If this doesn’t work, colleges are gonna be destroyed, women’s sports are gonna be destroyed… You’re gonna be left with football, and the football is going to lose so much money that the colleges are all gonna go bankrupt, all because of a bad number of decisions made by courts including I guess, the Supreme Court… I think the Supreme Court ought to be ashamed of itself for a lot of reasons, okay, a lot of reasons.
‘I’ve gotta live with these people… they’ll only vote bad and I couldn’t care less at this point. They have hurt this country so badly because they haven’t got the guts to do what’s right.’
Ackerman expressed support for further protections of women’s and Olympic sports
Ackerman shared the frustration over the stalling of the SCORE Act: ‘It never made it to a vote and disappoint[ed] many of us.
‘It had a number of provisions in there that were important in terms of restoring some stability in the college sector, particularly around some antitrust protection, non-employment classification for the athletes, and then state law preemption to keep the States away from the meddling that’s been happening that’s causing even more uncertainty.’
She added, ‘The President indicated something about, mentioned something about putting out an executive order. Wasn’t clear what the contents of that would be, and I don’t know the status of that. But I think, again, the fact that it happened and that there’s interest in trying to move along, potentially some federal legislation I take as a positive.’
