Trump mulls EO on athletes’ employment status

Dan Murphy Close Dan Murphy ESPN Staff Author Covers the Big Ten Signed up with ESPN.com in 2014 Graduate

of the University of

• Notre Dame Jul 17, 2025, 03:54 PM ET President Donald Trump is thinking about an executive order that would require federal authorities

to clarify whether college athletes can be considered employees of their schools, according to a draft copy of the order obtained this week by ESPN.The draft gets in touch with the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to “identify and carry out the proper steps with respect to clarifying the status of collegiate professional athletes. “The draft mentions the employment status of college professional athletes should”make the most of the instructional benefits and opportunities “schools can provide through their athletic departments.College sports leaders and numerous Republican lawmakers have actually been trying for the previous a number of years to obstruct athletes from acquiring employee rights, due to the fact that they state lots of athletic departments would

not have the ability to pay for the included expenses that would include employment.While Trump’s possible order would not clearly prohibit work (the president does not have the authority to make that decision in an executive order), it does echo those issues while requiring that the NLRB and Secretary of Labor

clarify employee status for college athletes.The news of a potential executive order was met with surprise around college sports previously today, after a CBS News story late Tuesday. Sources cautioned to ESPN that Trump might not go through with the executive order, which seems more encouraging of college sports rather than prescribing any particular transformational changes.The White House press office did not react to a request for comment.The order, if checked in its existing draft kind, would also develop a commission to determine methods which Trump’s administration could support “the preservation of college athletic chances,”a process that would include professional athletes, schools,

conferences, lawmakers and other leaders with experience in the industry.The draft also calls on other federal authorities– such as the Federal Trade Commission, Attorney General Of The United States and Secretary of Education– to take steps towards producing policies that would support the future of college sports and the training those programs attend to future U.S. Olympians.Trump’s office expressed interest months ago in an executive order that would help deal with a few of the present chaos in the college sports market however has not yet acted.Administrators have actually been asking Congress for numerous years to develop a new federal law to assist schools gain back some of the power that has been worn down by antitrust claims in the previous years. Those leaders have requested for a law that avoids professional athletes from ending up being employees and provides the NCAA with an antitrust exemption that would enable them to make its own guidelines– much of which would limit players ‘earning potential.If the NLRB were to choose that college professional athletes should not be considered employees, athletes would not be able to form a union and collectively plan on increased pay or other benefits.Earlier this week, members of the House Commerce Committee voted to move on with the legal procedure on an expense that would give the NCAA and college leaders the type of protection they are looking for. More than a dozen expenses resolving the future of college sports have actually been presented in the past five years, however none has yet to reach a complete vote in either

the House or Senate.Rep. Jim Jordan(R-Ohio ), who chairs your house Judiciary Committee, informed ESPN on Thursday that an executive order would not change strategies to continue pressing forward with a costs in Congress.”Our personnel has had discussions with the White Home about it,”Jordan said.”If and when it comes, it will remain in no way opposing the objectives and intents of our legislation.” Professional athletes began getting payments directly from their schools on July 1, a significant change to business of college sports that got here as a result of a recent antitrust settlement. Each school is enabled to pay up to $20.5 million to its professional athletes in the coming academic year, according to the terms of the settlement.The new limits for compensation and the system for enforcing those limits is most likely to welcome more claims in the future if Congress does not give the NCAA an antitrust exemption. Trump does not have the authority to approve an antitrust exemption via executive order.Several football coaches and athletic directors have just recently stated they believe it would make more sense– and supply more stability– if their players were considered employees and were able to collectively haggle.”The very best way to do it is to make it where players are workers and you have a salary cap, “Louisville coach Jeff Brohm told ESPN previously this month.”If players are getting paid, why don’t we just do it

the proper method? The amateurism isn’t there any longer. Let’s not pretend that it is.”The new system for payment deals with players as independent specialists who are getting cash in exchange for the rights to utilize their name, image and similarity in university promos rather than employees who are

being paid for their efficiency on the field. But contracts between schools and players might potentially reinforce the legal argument that athletes must be approved the rights that other workers have.Two various groups of college athletes who were petitioning the NLRB for the right to form unions dropped their cases late in 2015 soon after Trump was elected.There is one continuous federal case( Johnson v. NCAA)that argues professional athletes must be considered workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The complainant’s attorney because case, Paul McDonald, has previously argued

that any action that obstructs college professional athletes from being workers would be unconstitutional since it would treat the work athletes do as various than the work of other students who hold campus tasks.