President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled 'Saving College Sports;' What it could mean for South Carolina

NIL, the transfer portal, changes to scholarship rules, and most recently, revenue-sharing have drastically changed the landscape of the NCAA and its member institutions. That has been so true, in fact, that there have been prominent names in college sports calling for federal government intervention.

On Thursday, citing the United States’ striving to continue “unrivaled success in international competition” and desire to protect college sports from the “mortal threat” of unregulated pay, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Saving College Sports.” Within the order, the president acknowledged the need for recent “increased benefits and flexibility to student-athletes,” describing them as “overdue,” but he also ordered several new changes and prohibitions.

You can read the entire executive order here.

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Perhaps most notably, the presidential action calls for the protection and expansion of women’s sports and non-revenue sports and orders the prohibition of “third-party pay-for-play payments.”

As far as women’s sports and non-revenue sports are concerned, President Trump’s order requires institutions with an athletic revenue greater than $125 million to increase their total scholarship allotment for non-revenue sports. It also specifies that these athletic departments must award the maximum number of available scholarships in non-revenue sports. The order does not go into detail about how athletic departments are to navigate these guidelines in light of NCAA rules and Title IX laws; however, the order does say that these changes are to be made as “permitted under the applicable collegiate athletic rules.” New revenue-sharing plans at NCAA member institutions must “be designed and implemented in a manner that preserves or expands scholarships and collegiate athletic opportunities in women’s and non-revenue sports.”

The NCAA already explicitly outlaws third-party pay-for-play payments. However, instead of true payments for use of NIL (name, image, and likeness), many student-athlete payments have been closer to pay-for-play. How this order could affect things differently than the current NCAA prohibition remains to be seen. NIL payments, as defined by the executive order as “fair-market-value compensation that a third party provides to an athlete, such as for a brand endorsement,” are not affected.

The recent creation of the CSC (College Sports Commission) also requires non-revenue sharing NIL payments to be assessed. It is unknown if the CSC Clearinghouse will play a role in enforcing the prohibition against pay-for-play, or if another entity will handle that duty, leaving NIL assessment to the CSC.

NCAA President Charlie Baker released a statement in support of the executive order shortly after its release.

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According to financial releases from the school, the University of South Carolina athletics department is one that generated more than $125 million in revenue during the 2023-2024 school year. Because of that, relevant orders would apply to the Gamecocks. USC operated its athletic department at a slight deficit that year, but the application of the executive order is dependent upon gross revenue, not profit.

For the time being, it appears that the biggest applications for South Carolina from Trump’s order would be that Gamecock athletics cannot accept third-party pay-for-play payments as “NIL” (something that the NCAA also outlaws but hasn’t enforced with consistency) and that non-revenue sports at the school cannot shrink in number or in scholarship count.

As for a timeline, things could get rolling quickly. The order states, “Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Education, in consultation with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Education, and the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, shall develop a plan to advance the policies set forth…working with the Congress and State governments, as appropriate.” Several other elements of the executive order could take up to 60 days or 90 days, according to the release.

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