The current situation can't be solved with a stroke of the pen by the President. Either Congress has to enact some kind of anti-trust exemption for college athletics, or college athletes have to be allowed to collectively bargain with the schools. The story acknowledges that Congressional legislation is probably needed. There are legislative proposals, but enactment is not around the corner; a bill was brought to the House floor in December, but pulled because it didn't have the votes to pass. Even if the House passes a bill, the Senate would have to pass it as well, and that will require Democratic as well as Republican votes.
As the Head Coach in the movie The Program pointed out,"100,000 people don't show up to the stadium on Saturday to watch a kid do a damn chemistry experiment."
Something needs to kick off the process. College sports (especially football and basketball) are legit pro sports now. That means multi-year player contracts, spending caps for programs, and perhaps even a high school draft.
Again -- it can happen only with an act of Congress or through collective bargaining. The President can't impose it.
Well he will likely issue an EO and then will immediately taken to court
An EO granting an anti-trust exemption would be *very* unlikely to be upheld in the courts.
I hope I'm not being too political by expanding on that. The President heads the Executive branch, and the Executive branch can make law only within the bounds that Congress has authorized. For instance, the Executive branch can make emissions standards for motor vehicles because Congress has said the Executive branch can do it and has laid down criteria for the Executive branch to follow in making those standards. But there is no plausible argument, so far as I can see, that Congress has authorized the President to regulate college athletics or to exempt college athletics from the laws that currently apply to it.
Practically, maybe. But this isn't entirely true. The Supreme Court decision explicitly said the individual conferences could ban it. The SEC and Big 10 could ban it tomorrow and it might not even be an anti-trust violation if they colluded.
It's not an illegal gathering, it's just undocumented.
No conference will do so on its own because its members would then be at a disadvantage compared to every other. So it is impossible as a practical matter. It would almost certainly be an anti-trust violation for the Big Ten and SEC to do it because of their joint market power. Beside, the P4 conferences were all parties to the House settlement and they cannot do anything to violate that settlement without re-opening that litigation, which they do not want to do because of the possibility of triple damages. It's just not going to happen.
My translation of this is: "schools have to be stopped from using NIL as a way to evade the cap." That is what the College Sports Commission is supposed to be doing. It has hired a high-powered enforcement staff. We'll see if it succeeds.
Schools will still spend, even if there is a cap. They will just use the old system. Let’s say there is a cap of $10M. Alabama wants to spend $30M. They will spend the $10M the new legal way, and funnel the additional $20M the old way. As long as cheaters are in charge, cheating will take place.
Why even have big time college sports? Just play intramurals and let the NFL, NBA etc run farm Leagues....the schools and all of the people that make money off of college sports want it
If his intent was to do an EO it would have happened already. I think he gets that and he is just trying to get this thing started and let it run its course. Let's see where it goes but if members of congress are going to vote to protect their athletic factories (and the flow of cash going to them to effect their votes) nothing will come of this.
