Donald Trump is convening a high-profile roundtable at the White House to address a broad set of challenges confronting college athletics, including name, image and likeness compensation, the transfer portal, conference realignment and the overall future of collegiate sports, according to Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger.
The closed-door session, scheduled for next week, is expected to bring together college presidents, conference commissioners, athletic directors, coaches, business figures and sports executives in an effort to craft a collaborative approach to issues that have tainted the landscape of college sports in recent years.
Trump will serve as chair of the roundtable, according to Dellenger. The vice chairs will be Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and New York Yankees president Randy Levine.
Among the topics likely to be discussed are the evolving role of college athletics in higher education, financial inequity among schools and the rapidly changing economics driven by NIL deals and transfer-portal activity.
Supporters of the session say the urgency felt by many in the college sports landscape must find common ground and not in litigation. But will this produce substantive policy outcomes?
Expected attendees include a diverse mix of leaders in college sports and related industries, as reported by Dellenger.
White House college sports roundtable list Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips American Athletic Conference Commissioner Tim Pernetti Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez Athletic directors Jim Currie (Wake Forest), Jamie Pollard (Iowa State), Scott Dolson (Indiana), Pete Bevacqua (Notre Dame) Former Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione Former Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick Former coaches Mack Brown, Nick Saban, Tony Dungy and Urban Meyer Heisman Trophy winners Tim Tebow and Charlie Ward University presidents/chancellors, including Doug Girod (Kansas), Jeff Gold (Nebraska) and Donde Plowman (Tennessee) NBA Commissioner Adam Silver Business leaders such as David Blitzer, Marc Ganis and Gerry Cardinale Professional golfers Tiger Woods and Bryson DeChambeau Former U.S. Secretary of State and Denver Broncos minority owner Condoleezza Rice New England Patriots president Jonathan Kraft Texas Tech NIL chairman Cody Campbell Media executives from FOX and ESPN NCAA president Charlie Baker was not on this list. The meeting reflects growing attention from national figures to the economic and cultural significance of college sports. What remains to be seen is if this will spark real progress in the coming weeks.
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