President Trump's executive order on 'Saving college sports': What does it mean?

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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday called "Saving College Sports."

Here is everything you need to know about the order and how it impacts college sports:

A: Thanks to the constantly changing landscape and the introduction of college athletes now being paid for their name, image and likeness (NIL), the question has been raised of whether student-athletes should be considered employees of their schools.

Trump's order claims that these changes, and paying in some cases millions to football and basketball players, could hurt smaller, non-revenue-earning sports (such as softball, track or golf) and ruin the spirit of college sports.

This order direct the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify that athletes are amateurs and not school employees.

The order does allow normal, honest payments for NIL from things like brand endorsements and public appearances.

This mandate would prevent schools from getting into bidding wars for players, particularly football and basketball players, on the recruiting trail and by way of transfer.

In short, Trump with this order wants to move the needle of college sports back toward where it was before NIL came along.

A lawsuit involving the NCAA and multiple college conferences was settled and approved in June. Referred to as the "House settlement," it required schools that opted into it to agree to share money with athletes, and capped what they could pay.

Revenue sharing already went into effect as of July 1.

For the 2025-26 fiscal year, the cap per college was put at $20.5 million to share across sports. Ohio State chose to split that money across football, men's and women's basketball and women's volleyball.

Paying up to $20.5 million will still be allowed under this new order, but the order emphasizes that however schools choose to spread out that $20.5 million, it must not come at the cost of smaller, non-revenue sports.

That could complicate things for athletic departments, and force OSU, for example, to pay athletes in more than those four sports.

In the short term, this order gives agencies like the Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission 30 days to:

A "booster collective" is a group comprised of alumni and university supporters that pools together funds to provide NIL opportunities to student athletes.

These collectives have often operated independently of the school to pay athletes for endorsements, public appearances or sponsorships.

In the long term, this order will lead to a more regulated NIL market with restrictions on how these collectives can pay players.

There are a lot of questions about what impact Thursday's order will have, but it's clear the Trump administration wants to see changes, and more government regulation.