Days after gaining traction, President Donald Trump has paused the formation of a presidential commission on college athletics.
The White House’s decision was made Wednesday morning after conversations with lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who suggested the commission’s work be sidelined as they seek co-sponsorship on Cruz’s long-developing bill to regulate college athletics. The presidential commission could return within the next 90 days, though no promises from the White House have been made, sources said.
Confidence that the commission focused on regulating college sports would gain bipartisan support was waning, and the Big Ten and SEC, the two most powerful conferences in college athletics, opposed commission leader Cody Campbell’s notions behind the scenes, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation. One high-ranking official told CBS Sports this week their nightmare was seeing Campbell arm-in-arm with Trump and completely reversing the years of work that have gone into supporting a new era of college sports that is expected to soon allow universities to pay their athletes directly. The White House was also convinced to sideline the commission because of the full docket Trump faces: trade disputes, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the economy.
The presidential commission also faced opposition on the ground, sources told CBS Sports. Campbell’s public push to pool conferences’ media rights to help smaller leagues facing financial trouble was of great concern to the Big Ten and SEC. Sources within those conferences believed Campbell’s primary goal was to prop up Texas Tech, his alma mater, and the Big 12 at the expense of what the Big Ten and SEC are trying to accomplish.
Campbell criticized the two conferences’ stranglehold on amateur athletics and their efforts in Washington, D.C., seeking legal protections that would mostly favor them and lead to smaller conferences crumbling under financial burden. The power conferences and the NCAA have spent millions on lobbying efforts in Capitol Hill over the last four years.
“The NCAA is broken, but handing the keys to a few fat cats is worse,” Campbell wrote in March. “America thrives on competition, not cozy cartels blessed by D.C.”
The seed for Trump’s presidential commission was planted May 1 when Trump visited the University of Alabama to speak at a commencement ceremony. It’s there he met with former Alabama coach Nick Saban, and the two discussed college athletics and the unwieldy world of NIL. Campbell, the chairman of Texas Tech’s board of regents, was put in charge of the commission and actively sought input from college leaders and was recently recruiting members to serve, including Saban.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama), who accompanied Trump on his visit to Alabama, recently expressed doubt to CBS Sports that a federal legislative solution would emerge, instead putting his hopes in what Campbell and Saban could accomplish together with a commission.
“I think Nick and Cody can get something done along with President Trump’s power,” Tuberville told CBS Sports last week. “You’re not going to get six votes in the Senate, so [Trump is] going to have to say, ‘Look, this is what we’re going to do.’”
Campbell has been heavily involved in the NIL space since 2022, when he founded The Matador Club, Tech’s NIL collective. He also has ties to Trump and Cruz, who he has financially supported via donations and fundraising events.
Meanwhile, Saban publicly questioned whether a commission was needed. Multiple Power Four sources told CBS Sports that Saban’s distancing from the commission was helpful in slowing any progress.
.“I know there’s been a lot of stuff out there about some commission or whatever. I don’t think we need a commission,” Saban said, according to Bama247. “We know what the issues are; we just have to have people who are willing to solve those issues.”
NCAA president Charlie Baker and ACC commissioner Jim Phillips voiced support for the commission last week.
“The fact that there’s an interest on the executive side speaks to the fact that everybody is paying a lot of attention right now to what’s going on in college sports,” Baker said.
