Episode 5195: The President Participates In Saving College Sports Roundtable

The economic pressures are unsustainable. We've heard this several times, and we know that Olympic sport budgets inevitably rise to the top as the first to be cut. And in some cases women's sport, but it's also men's sport may be eliminated. We must keep our eye on both. You're watching the east wing of the White House, the college sports roundtable with President Trump. You're in the war room. We're going to carry this live until it's concluded. The future health of sport in our country. We cannot wait for the economic pressure to create this crisis. We stand here today, Team USA, in solidarity and partnership with the collegiate sports community to encourage Congress to pass legislation that stabilizes the foundation of sport on campus and ensures a healthy and robust ecosystem for student athletes across a wide array of Olympic sports and football, which is kind of coming to the Olympics. Let me conclude by assuring you that American athletes are ready for this global challenge. In fact, we welcome it. But the pursuit of excellent deserves a system that continues to invest in them. Thank you, Mr. President and to our congressional leaders, to the college administrators, and to the many representatives across the sports industry who are here today. We value your commitment to sport and we welcome your partnership. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you very much, Sarah. And we'll conclude with our little early speeches, but we'll hear everybody that wants to. If you have an idea, if you don't have any ideas, maybe you don't bother. Okay. But if you have something good, and maybe what we're talking about with the Score Act, seems to have a lot of support, but we'll talk about that. Pete Bavaqua, please. Hey, Mr. President, thanks. Thank you. Thanks for having us all here and a special thanks on behalf of Notre Dame for your kind words about Coach Holtz. I know he was a dear friend of yours, so we appreciate that. And this meeting is important. It's timely. I think everybody around this table knows that we need help to straighten this out. We need the help of Congress. In this post-house world of NIL and compensation, we're finding ourselves in a situation where college football, particularly men's basketball, women's basketball, but particularly college football, I don't think it's any secret that people understand that so many of the decisions around college sports are driven almost solely by college football. And college football is certainly important to Notre Dame. We make no secret about that. But it's become a runaway financial train. And if it continues to be that way, even the healthiest of universities are going to have to make incredibly difficult decisions, decisions that are going to impact women's sports and Olympic sports. There's simply no way around that. So we need regulations. We need regulations. We need financial transparency. And we need repercussions. People's feet need to be held to the fire. I talked to Coach Saban before we entered into this room, and we were talking about the transfer portal. And Greg mentioned it as well. But when you have young men and women going to three schools in three years, four schools in four years, the student athlete, and they're student athletes, they're not just athletes, and we're forgetting the academic part, we're forgetting the student part. And if you're going to four schools in four years to make a few more hundred thousand dollars on each stop, where when you're 21, 20 years old, you think all your financial troubles have gone away, you're going to find at the end of that college experience, you're not going to have an academic degree. That money that you thought you could rely on for the rest of your life is going to be absent by the time you're 23 or 24. And you're going to have the rest of your life, you're going to find yourself in a very difficult position. So we have to talk about financial transparency, and we have to restate the importance of the student athlete experience. We can't forget that. Because the percentage of people that can go on and play in the NBA, the WNBA, the NFL is extremely low, and it's the importance of that academic degree that you get throughout your student athlete experience, it's going to serve you so well for the rest of your life. And quite frankly, I think if we can agree on regulations with real repercussions, and we go down the road of a free market enterprise where college football continues to be a runaway train financially, I think there's got to be a commitment that if you're going to spend X on college football and Y on men's basketball and Z on women's basketball, you should be required to pay some sort of percentage of that to reinvest into your own Olympic movement within your universities. So I think this meeting, as I said, is important. I think we're coming to a point where we're going to be at no return if we don't get our act together and try to speak with one voice and solve this. So thanks again, Mr. President. Thank you very much, Pete. So maybe we have to start with a base because we, you know, I'd like to say the base should be what we had before, which worked so well for so many years with scholarships. When I heard Charlie say the kind of numbers that was paid in the form mostly of scholarships, that was pretty impressive. But maybe we can't go back. Maybe we have to go forward. And what's happened is sitting here with Jim and some of the people that are talking about the Score Act, maybe that should be the base. And maybe we should work off that. But if anybody has any ideas, I mean, I'm just noticing all of the divisions, all of the people that have supported, including the NCAA, the 31 Division 1 conferences, 23 Division 2, 22 Division 3, all HBCU conferences, I mean, a lot of, and a lot more than that. So maybe that can be a base. That's the Score Act, which I know it's been, Mike has worked on it long and hard. We have a great guy, Jim Jordan, right here. He was a great athlete. He was virtually undefeated in college wrestling, virtually. I don't know. It was probably one bad night, I think, Jim. But he was some great athlete, some great wrestler. And that sport is being torn apart by what's happening right here. What's your help when you came last year, Mr. President? Sure, help when you were at the NCAA championship last year. Right. So if we could go, and if somebody would have some suggestions, Mike, do you like the idea of using this as a base and we work off the base? Or would you like to start from ground zero? Well, I think I speak on behalf of the legislators around the table that worked really hard on the Score Act and many who have been involved and brought their ideas to the table. Our fear is that if we begin from scratch, I think everyone around the table understands we, this could take a long, long time. A lot of the debate and discussion and deliberation has gone into this. I got this one page summary. I'm happy to pass around. I assume most people around the table know the basic parameters of the bill and where we are. But the idea would be that if there are, you know, Randy and I were speaking earlier before we came in, when at the Oval Office, there may be some ideas to enhance it or make it better. We want to have the best possible product. I mean, maybe, Mr. President, I think that's a good suggestion. We begin from that. For lack of a better idea, if anyone has a better base that we should begin with, we're open to it. But I'm looking at some of my chairmen of the committees of jurisdiction and everybody has worked really hard on this. And our majority leaders down at the end of the table, Steve Scalise, has kind of helped quarterback this, pun intended, to get it through the process. And if you have specific questions about specific points or parts of that legislation, we're happy to answer that. But maybe that's part of the discussion. Maybe we could, maybe the question is not a rhetorical one, but a question for all of you. Does anyone have any big concern about what is currently on the table in the Score Act or have ideas on how to improve it? Would anybody oppose? I mean, most of you have studied the Score Act more so than I have. Would anybody feel strongly opposed to starting with the base of the Score Act, which has gone through a lot? You would oppose it? Go ahead. Well, first, I'm Laurie Trahan. I represent Massachusetts and appreciate being invited to this today. And I'm really happy to hear you talk about women's sports in particular. I played Division I volleyball at Georgetown. That's changed my life. And so really I've spent a lot of time on college sports. And I think I'm the only Democratic legislator in the room. I'm not going to pretend to speak for all of them. But I do think we want to solve college sports as much as everyone here. I think one of the issues that we had with the Score Act, look at this, we've got some revenue issues and governance issues. The Score Act in its codifying the house settlement really hurts women in Olympic sports. We've already seen a number of programs cut across the country. So I think we do need a revenue mechanism to save and protect. One, Strengthening Title IX has to be part of the Score Act as well as ensuring that we are funding those programs. I mean, look, I'm also a mom. I've got a college athlete, you know, son who played lacrosse. I've got another daughter who hopes to sports is the lifeblood right now. People are in their playing sports at record levels at the youth league. If this is any time we should be expanding opportunities for sports, it's right now. And I think one thing that the Score Act represented was just a consolidation of what we have today, which is the SEC and the Big Ten, no offense, Greg and Tony, but all the money really is going to those two conferences right now and we need to address the revenue issue. I know there's been some proposals as far as modernizing the Sports Broadcasting Act. That could be one. I'm open for discussion on that. And then certainly making sure that we have a strong federal standard for NIL. A patchwork of laws does not work. I couldn't imagine signing my letter of intent and having to study up on every single state law and who offers what, but making sure that we have athletes' voices mandated at the table. They're not here today, so I do feel a responsibility to represent those 560,000 athletes who are not here right now, but making sure that they've got recourse if their NIL rights are violated or not upheld. But let me just say again, I would love to work and maybe the Score Act is the right vehicle that we continue to tweak so that it has a path in the Senate as well. I know that there's a lack of consensus on many of the governance issues, but we would like to solve that with everyone here today. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. You might want to respond to that. Well, there's some good points made there for sure. And I think everybody has the same intention as we want to protect women's sports as well. And I got two daughters. I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that. But with regard to the Patchworker State Laws, as many of you probably know, the Score Act addresses it because it creates a national NIL standard. And then it allows the associations, the authority to make rules on transfers and compensation caps and the things that are really burdening the system. And then it protects those rules from being challenged under antitrust laws. So we create an exemption there for that. So I think there are a lot of thoughts gone into how to address it there. But I mean, again, we have no pride of authorship here. We want to have the best possible product. So I mean, the authors of the bill are open to good suggestions. So you'll be back. Anybody, please? Yes, Steve. Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate you bringing everybody together because I think we're all here because we have a passion to protect college sports. And we've recognized that with this Wild Wild West mentality, it's not healthy for the future of college athletics. And so bringing structure back and really bringing the ability for the schools to govern themselves again is what our intention was from the very beginning. We started this a few years ago. Remember, Coach Sabin came to my office and others. And we started listening to the people that are there at the schools dealing with the problem as payment of students became legal, which happened through legal arguments that, Mr. President, you talked about some of these lawsuits that ultimately broke down the framework that Charlie Baker and others were able to use to police college athletics. That's gone now. And so how do we put that structure back? So we listened to the schools. We listened to the different different conferences, all the different conferences. We talked to a lot of student athletes. We have a number of student athletes in Congress who played different sports, who are co-sponsors of the Score Act, and came to this from that same approach saying, as somebody who played athletics or somebody who just has a passion, I lived in Tiger Stadium my second year at LSU. In case you're wondering where my leanings are, but I care about the future of college athletics. And when you see a student athlete, as you talked about, Pete, on their sixth school and their 28 years old, number one, they're not going to have any college credits to be able to graduate. And the idea of being able to get a degree for the 99% who aren't going to play professional sports is just going to be lost. And how can you re-establish that? So we started putting some things together. We have the antitrust protections in this bill. We protect women's sports in this bill. We established, Mr. President, that Title IX maintains so that however many men's sports you have, you have to have an equal number of women's sports. Some schools have a lot of sports. Some schools can only afford a few, but whatever you have, you have to have an equal number of women's sports. And that's protected in this bill. And obviously, the Olympic sports are protected as well. We also wanted to make sure you could put limits on the transfer portal because that is something that a lot of people get very frustrated when they see that you just have pure free agency. The professional sports don't even have that. And so you limit with, and again, open to suggestions. But what everybody seemed to come to an agreement on was five total years of playing with one ability to transfer within that. And there's flexibility by the governing organization. So the NCAA can look at a case by case if your father's on life support and you want to transfer to a different school to be close to your family, you can get an additional one. But let the governing body be able to do that again. We put those in the bill and then we give the financial literacy requirements so that student athletes have more protections that they currently don't have today. You might be getting that $300,000 or $2 million contract. You might not even know you have to pay taxes on that. And you might run into some real financial problems if you're a 17, 18-year-old kid. We make sure the schools educate the kids on financial literacy. So we put a lot of other things, including health protections, as Commissioner Sankey talked about. So we listen to students, we listen to schools, we listen to all the conferences, all the HBCUs support this bill. And we built a framework and we built a coalition. We're right now at a point where we've got more than a majority in Congress supporting this bill, including, as the speaker said, double digit number of Democrats who support this bill. So it's a bipartisan coalition. We absolutely will take more input, but only input that grows the coalition, not detracts from the ability for student athletes to get that structure that they and the schools need. That's what the SCORAC does. We want to move on it soon because I think we all recognize that we can't wait another year and have this Wild Wild West continue and it will take the Senate some time to start their own process. So I'm expecting we're going to be moving soon and hopefully the next few weeks on the SCORAC and the House and then keep this conversation going, keep growing this coalition to solve this problem, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. We have to move it quickly. Otherwise, you're going to have another season that's a disaster. And it's not affordable by colleges. Next to you, Steve, you had something to say. Thank you. I did. Thank you, President Trump. My name is Jim Phillips. I'm the commissioner of the ACC. We welcome Kai this fall. I'll be your commissioner. So we'll look forward to seeing you out watching her play. I went on a college campus 30 some years ago and never left until I became commissioner. And I will tell you, we need your help. We need everybody's help in this room. There are six areas that the SCORAC is the right piece of legislation. First, as been mentioned, there's the national law versus state legislation and patchwork. We have 37 disparate laws across the country. So what you can do in one state is different than what you can do in another state. That just doesn't work when you have inter-state competition. As Greg mentioned so well, the student athletes want to know that they're lining up against somebody that's abiding by the same rules, NIL, rev share and the rest. Second, it's a reaffirmation that these are student athletes. Not one of the commissioners in this room has had a student athlete come up to them and say, we would like to be an employee. They're smart enough to understand what that means. Third, limited liability protection. The lawsuits are killing us. They're absolutely crushing college sports. If you don't like a rule, you just go to the local judge and the local judge deems you eligible. Fourth, degree completion. It's never been better to be a student athlete. You can come back to school and get a degree. You have a chance to be a pro and you leave early. We want you to come back. Fifth, medical care. The medical care is as good as I've ever seen in my 30 years ever, and it's mental health as well as physical health and well-being. Finally, the codification of the house case. And I heard the mention of hurting women's sports. I will say in the ACC, similar to the SEC, big 12 and big 10, we have added 942 new scholarships because of the house case. 56% of the ACC of those scholarships have gone to women's sports. So the house case has not hurt women's sports. It has not. And the idea that we can sustain this has just not been expressed, is just not feasible. So we need your help. We thank you for taking your time and assembling this crew. And we look forward to working together. So the concept of what we're doing with your great experience is a pretty good start. Yeah. If you could pass that around, it would be great. This is a summary of the SCORE Act, which I think people should see. So you like the concept of what we're doing? Very good. Yeah, it sounds good. Yes, sir. Good. Thank you very much. Please. Tim Pranetti, the commissioner of the American Conference. Mr. President, thank you for putting this incredible meeting together. And more personally, thank you for your support of the Army Navy game. Army Navy, you're members of the American Conference. Thank you. Like a lot of people have said in this room, I had the same experience. College football changed my life. I couldn't afford college. I got a scholarship and it changed everything. And I won't reiterate all the reasons why SCORE makes sense, because there's a lot about it that makes sense. But what we have to remind ourselves, and there's a lot of business people in the room, is we're not solving the economic crisis as part of it, because we are in a real economic crisis in college sports. Like we have complex challenges. The mission is completely out of focus. This thing was about education through sport. That's what it was supposed to be, to what Coach Saban said. It still is that, so long as we put it back in focus. But we can get through SCORE, create more consistency, because the industry has a lack of consistency from eligibility all the way down the line. But we have to examine other ways to solve the economic crisis. And these things shouldn't impede each other. And I know it is a very hot-wired topic, but looking at the opportunity for the industry to bring together valuable commercial resources in the future, such as unifying their meteorites, is something that should be examined. And we're not making that decision today. If the Sports Broadcasting Act can be amended to provide college football, the antitrust protection that the pro leagues have to be able to unify their meteorites, that gives the industry an option, which is the important word in the future. And that's really what the industry will need. This is an expense problem, but there are revenue paths that we haven't ventured down yet. The reality of all this is going to take bold steps. It's going to take guts. And this has become a transactional business where commitment is flying out the window, but it's not everybody. The top 1%, which is how the industry has been designed, to serve the top 1%. 99 out of 100 student athletes in our league don't want to be employees, to what Jim Phillips said. And they signed up for a great experience. Like our responsibility is to make sure we reinforce the mission and create resources around them to have the experience. But that conversation, whatever side of it you're on, should be had to see if there's an option in the future to dramatically improve the economics for the industry. Thank you so much, Mr. President. Well, thank you. And thank you for mentioning the Army Navy game, because as you know, we, I signed an executive order to protect that time slot, so that during that from like 3 o'clock to 6 o'clock or 6.30, I guess, we protect that space, that airspace. So nobody can play a football game, and we have the Army Navy game protected, because the kind of money that's being thrown around, they're a little bit concerned that the Army Navy game, as great as it is, may not, may not do so well. I think it would actually do pretty well. But we protected the time spot anyway, so that during that little period of time, it won't have any of this competition where lots of money is being thrown around. I think it was a worthwhile protection, because it really is a special, it is a very special time and a special, very special game. So thank you very much. Great job. Anybody else around? Mr. President, could I just, before you're being handed a, you're given a handout that just has a quick summary bullet points of the composition of the Score Act for those that aren't familiar with it. And let me just apologize. I think NIL has been abused, and my staff put my name and image on the top of it really big, and that was, it's sort of ironic, I'm not intended, sorry about that. You didn't get paid for it. I didn't get paid anything for it. You're back. Anybody else, please? Cody, please. Yes, sir. Mr. President, I would like to express my gratitude for your involvement, interest in all of this, and especially personally the opportunity to be involved in helping to find the solution, because college sports, as many have said, changed my life, you know, made me a better businessman, a better husband, better father, and made me better in life in general. This is a complex issue. It's multifaceted. There are a lot of different perspectives on how it should be solved. There are a lot of different agendas that are represented in this room, and the Score Act is a good start. It gives us a place that we can build on, but as we move into the Senate, the political dynamics are going to change, and many of the agendas that are represented in this room and outside of this room are going to come into conflict with one another. The reality is nobody's going to get everything that they want. If we're going to come to a solution on this, we have to find a place where we're all sort of equally unhappy, so to speak. That's just like any other business deal. I think what's key is that we are all willing to come to the table and compromise and work together, recognize that the small schools are important, the big schools are important, women's sports are important, Olympic sports are important. It's not just about big-time college football. That may require you twisting some arms along the way to make sure that people work together and are willing to give a little bit. I understand that this whole ecosystem of college sports belongs to all of us. It's a national treasure. It's a public trust, as I've heard Clay Travis say before, and I think it's very accurate. It belongs to all the American people, and all the American people should share in it. I would just encourage all of everyone here, and I think that might even be a commitment that you could ask everyone to make, is that they will work together, they are compromised, come to the table, and be constructive. Cody, I know you have worked very hard on this, and frankly, you've been working on it long and hard, maybe harder than anybody else. I've heard your name mentioned more than anybody. Could you use this as a base, and we all get together, maybe as a smaller group, and ultimately report back to the larger group, and come up with something? Do you think this is a good base? Yes, sir. I think it's certainly a good base, and it's a great starting point. Again, the dynamics will be different in the Senate, and we'll have to build on it from there. Again, a lot of these tougher issues are going to come to the surface once we get there, but absolutely, we should be in a smaller group that can work on those things and work on the compromise that needs to be made to be able to have a bill that can get 60 votes in the Senate. Is there any way we could go back to the old system, which I thought was fantastic, and do something with some compensation for the players, and simplify things so that you'd go back to a scholarship system, plus some compensation, more minimal, but a lot for a player. I mean, for the most part, they would consider it to be a lot, whether it was $75,000 or $50,000, or maybe more than that. But you go back to that wonderful system that I thought we had until this judge decided to just throw everything out the window, and it's been worked at for years and years, and it was finally honed. And then all of a sudden, we're sitting in this crazy Neverland, where colleges are losing hundreds of millions of dollars, and in many cases, not even putting out competitive teams. It's incredible. Is there any way that can work? Coach, we were together, and you had some pretty strong ideas. How would you feel about that? As a coach, well, first of all, thanks for having us. Thank you, coach. I speak on behalf of so many of my former colleagues that I visit them now, and they're a mess. I don't see coaches sticking around longer. The coaches getting paid for most of they leave, and enjoy their life, because what they're dealing with is the loss of a locker room. You take away team in our countries in trouble. My two girls played college volleyball, and one of the greatest interviews I've ever witnessed is she's a Georgia Tech and said, I learned so much more on the volleyball court than I ever learned in any classroom, which I agree with. So I actually think it's a simple fix. And it's not simple unless we get antitrust protection, because the NCAA, when I was growing up in the profession, if you violated rule, that was a problem. You lose your job. And that was made very clear throughout litigation and other issues. The NCAA has become they don't have subpoena power. And every time they make a decision, they get litigated. And I get it. I mean, I see, I witness it. And as a result, and we know this from some of the policies you put in place, rules without enforcement equals chaos. You don't need new rules. We got plenty of rules. Enforce them. So if we get antitrust, then you now will not get litigated. And I would eliminate the only thing I dislike about the score act is that in coach, say when I visited about this, Mac Brown, if I visit and I visited about this, get rid of the collectives. That's cheating. When donors, so everyone understands what a collective is, donors put money in a pot, it's distributed by two players through the coach and the general manager, according to your talent level, that's not allowed. Not supposed to do that. That's called pay for play. So there's a revenue share that the universities get through their television contracts and I know goes up every year. That's their only financial. That's the only thing they're allowed to do for their student athletes. They can distribute that however they want. That's still pay for play. But any NIL conversations, which NIL, I think we all got a quick call on it that it's not name and likeness. These players get paid millions of dollars in some of the stories I hear and they're posting an Instagram for twice and then they're getting paid $1.5 million. So the NIL to me, NIL in its purest form is America. It's called capitalism. If you can, if you can make money up on your name, you should ever write to do that. If you're a gymnast volleyball player, a swimmer, a football player and a car dealership wants to work with you legally in a business world, do it. That's what NIL should be. That's not what it is. So you get rid of the collective, becomes an illegal entity. There's no such thing. Even to this day, that makes my skin curl when I hear a collective. Get the donors out of it. If a business owner wants to hire Jeremiah Smith and pay him a certain amount of money, he's certainly allowed to do that. That's called capitalism. But the universities cannot arrange that and set that up. Universities can simply make sure the kids go to school, make sure they graduate, treat them fairly, make sure the women's sports, the title nine, I'm all in favor of all that, but they cannot get involved in the financial marketing of your players. That's let the market take care of itself. That's called the market. That's called Kaplan. And the collective, I think if the collective goes away, college sports gets better immediately when you say that. If we have antitrust exemption. You know, it's just sitting around and having watched college sports for so long with no problems, no problems. What this incompetent judge did to this game, knowing nothing at all about sports, about anything that we're talking about today is a disgrace. And it's going to be a very hard thing to put back together. We'll get it done. But what this person did to college sports is a disgrace. I say it. And we've seen plenty of those type of opinions. I had one recently. And it's gross incompetence, as my opinion. And everybody suffers, including student athletes, including women. Women are really taking the brunt of it, as what you were saying before. It was so perfect for women. It was so great for women the way it was. And now we have to come up with a whole new scheme to satisfy people. And there are going to be some unhappy people. And it was working before. A person that knew absolutely nothing about sports made a ruling. And she turned the whole thing upside down. And it's really a disgrace. You want to know the damn disgrace. But we are where we are. And we'll figure something out. And it won't be easy. And it won't be as good. In my opinion, it won't be as good as what you had before, including for the students that were getting great scholarships. And, you know, someone onto professional sports, and most of them didn't. But they got great education. They got it for free. And they had a lot of fun going to college. And they learned a lot. And they had great coaches, many of whom are around the table. They learned more from those coaches in many cases than they learned in the classroom. So, yeah, I appreciate what you say. Don't forget when these donors or collectors or whatever you want, all different names for different people. But as that money comes in, that's also money colleges aren't going to get. You know, they're giving money to players as opposed to giving maybe to the college to keep a lot of colleges going. And that's pretty tough also. But it's just a shame because I hear I got involved just recently and I looked at what's happened to colleges and to college sports. And it is colleges. Because the colleges are going to go out of business, many of these colleges. When I look at what a person that's a judge was able to do to destroy colleges and college sports, that was so good, no problems. It's very, very sad. And in some ways, I'd like to just go exactly back to what we had and ram it through a court if we have to. Because I'm not sure you're ever going to come up with a system that's comparable to what you had. And, you know, in life, you like to get better, not worse. You like to go forward, not backward. No matter what you come up with, you've gone backward, a long way backward in many cases. Mr. President. Yeah, please. Mr. President. 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That's 24-7 monitoring of your title, urgent alerts to any changes, and if fraud should happen, they'll spend up to $1 million to fix it. Go to hometitlelock.com now. Use promo code Steve. That's hometitlelock.com. Promo code Steve. Do it today. Do it now. Hi Ted. I want to thank you and echo the thanks for bringing this group together. And I want to in particular underscore the urgency that we have heard around this this table. College sports is an absolute crisis. Every single week we're seeing another program being canceled. We're seeing another women's team being canceled. We're seeing Olympic teams being canceled. And the current chaos, if Congress doesn't act, we are very quickly going to be in a world of 30 to 50 college football teams that are basically a mini NFL. And the Division II and Division III schools are going to be left behind. And the millions of college athletes who right now scholarships provide an avenue for them to get an education that they never would have had, that'll go away. And that would be an absolute travesty if we let that happen. I will say several people around this table said this is a bipartisan issue and we have bipartisan consensus. I agree it should be a bipartisan issue. But it's it's worth speaking realistically. The challenge is simple. You asked about the score act. I think the score act has many good elements. I think it's it is a very good first step. But the challenge is for this to be passed into law and put on your desk. We need 60 votes in the Senate, which means we need at least seven Senate Democrats. Right now there are zero Senate Democrats who support the score act. I've spent the last three years negotiating with Senate Democrats on this issue. And I will say for some time we have been to use a football analogy at the two yard line, but not able to push. And the and there are interest groups on the left, in particular trial lawyers and unions that have resulted in Democrat senators that are actively lobbying against the score act and don't want to see legislation passed. And so my hope there are a lot of people around this table who care desperately about college sports. My hope is that you speak out to Democrat senators and urge them, let's come together and solve this together. And I think a solution part of a solution needs to be on the cost side. And I think part of the solution should be discussing and looking at the revenue side. I think both of those are important parts of the solution. There are a number of Senate Democrats who care about this, but have not quite gotten to the point of getting to yes. That's the single biggest challenge. And I think the collective voices around this table, adding to the urgency that if we wait another year, if we wait another two years, the programs in your state are going away and the students in your state are losing their scholarships. And it would be an absolute travesty if we let that happen. President, thank you. And I want to underscore that sense of urgency on the Senate side. I do think there's a growing number of senators that do understand that if we're if you if we're here a year from now, we're in a much worse place. If we're here two years from now, college or college sports looks entirely different and it would be a disaster. So I do think that that growing sense of urgency is important. I do think I appreciate you convening this. You have unique credibility on this, not just being president, but we've spent time at the Super Bowl watching the Super Bowl playing golf. You love sports, you have credibility on it, you care about it. And I think that authenticity matters for the leadership that we need. I do think that if we're serious about this, the antitrust exemption matters for the governance side. But I think the revenue side is inextricably linked to the success of this. If you are losing money on a football, and I, from Missouri, we love, you know, we're in the SEC. If you're losing money on your on your football program, you're not going to be able to subsidize the women's sports, the Olympic sports. So I do think that we can come together. I am hopeful and optimistic by the people who are represented in this room. And as we move forward, that we can find a solution. We have to. This is not just because we like watching sports on TV, why this is important. There are lives that can be changed forever if we do the right thing. And I think you've got the right people in the room. And I think you're the right guy to lead this effort. We're here to support those efforts in the Senate. Can I ask Charlie Baker? Charlie, do you think we could come back to a solution or get a solution that was as good as what we had before or almost as good as what we had before? Or maybe better, I don't think better, but maybe would you say that's possible, Charlie? You're in the position to be able to tell maybe better than anybody else. Well, I certainly, first of all, I appreciate the question because it's at the end of the day, the one we all care about the most, which is can we create a system going forward that's better than the one we have now? And and I think the focus people, the thing about the score act that everybody needs to remember here, it's a comprehensive piece of legislation that deals with a whole series of things that I think everybody would agree are a problem. The discussion, the place where the discussion gets a little more complicated is the issue about the cost and the revenue side and the implications of those two issues. And if I were to say to this group, where's the place to go, it would probably be there. And do I think if you could get that resolved, you could create something that most people would view as better than better than what we had before? I think you'd certainly be heading in that direction. The big the big thing we all have to remember here is that the way it was before and I'm I'm I'm almost 70. So I remember those days quite well. Sports and media played a completely different role in our society than the one they play now. And and the money piece in particular is got to be part of the conversation and that's got to involve the student athletes. And your point, Mr. President, about coming up with a more structured way of dealing with that, I think is a good one. But that's got to be part of the dialogue for the same reason that the revenue piece has to be part of the dialogue as well. So much money was paid to students in the form of scholarships. What was the exact number that you said, Charlie, before 4.1 billion last year? 4.1 billion was paid to the students in the form of scholarships and everybody was happy. Everybody was happy. And now you got yourself a mess. And I think you should just go back to where you have and let some judge tell you you can't do it. And you appeal it up and you win at some point. Because I think what you had was a great system. 4.1 billion dollars. Everybody was happy. Now you have a thing that you're never going to say. You have a jigsaw puzzle that's not going to be put back together. And colleges are going to go out of business. And I think you go back and the players that got the 12 million dollars, a 17 year old quarterback, they got 12 million, one got 14 million. Right here, they're negotiating one at 18 million dollars. They don't know if he's got an accurate arm, but he's got a strong arm coach. Accuracy counts too. They have no idea they're going to give 18 million dollars. And you know what, those guys that already signed contracts, you know what, call that the lotto. They hit the jackpot. Let them have their money. You can't do anything about it. But I'd like to see and I'll tell you, I just don't think it's right that a judge is allowed that nothing is allowed to destroy college sports and colleges. And I'd like to see you go back to where you were, enhance it a little bit through some compensation and let them take you to court. Because no matter what you do, you're going to be sued. You can do 100, you could give everybody everything and you're going to end up back in court and you'll probably have a judge that doesn't know a damn thing. And it's a mess. It's a mess. And I don't know whether or not that decision was appealed. Was that decision ever appealed? Does anyone know? Because I heard it was not appealed. I believe the House settlement is being litigated now because it violates the time. No, but was it appealed, the decision? The House settlement, I think. The original decision by the judge from California, was that appealed? Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I misunderstood. Yeah, the answer is no. It was settled because it was, I think, the third case. Why didn't somebody appeal it? The prior case, which is Alston versus the NJ, was appealed to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court found 9-0 against the college position to defend the old system. So that's, I think the answer is the antitrust piece is the inherent problem in trying to create caps and limits. That's it. So the Supreme Court was responsible for this? Gee, that surprises me. I'm not the one who's going to say that. I'm not bold enough to say that, but at least acknowledge the promise. 9-0. Was the Supreme Court responsible for this? 9-0 in Kavanaugh supported. That's a shame. It's a shame. Yes, sir, please. Mr. President, thank you for bringing this esteemed group together. I have a bit of a unique perspective because for most of my career, I was in professional sports. I became the commissioner three and a half years ago. I found a system that quickly was defined by unlimited free agency and no salary cap and complete chaos. I am, and representing the Big 12, we are very much in favor of the Score Act. I like to say it's progress over perfection and it provides no different than what Commissioner Phillips said, the core principles of what we need to move this thing forward. One thing that we didn't discuss so far today was athlete protection rights, which is obviously part of the Score Act. And there's a component there about regulating sports agents that we need to really look at. Now, I know we have some agents in the room and I have a lot of respect for that industry, but right now they are taking full advantage of our student athletes. Usually in the NBA or the NFL, it's a three to four, maybe five percent commission. In some cases, they're charging over 20. We talked about the portal. Most agents are pushing our student athletes into the portal and the recent numbers show that over 40 percent don't even find a home once they get into the portal. And because they're being pushed into the portal, and Mr. Sanky said it earlier, they're losing credits towards their degrees. So we have a problem on our hands obviously and I don't believe in perfection. I do believe in progress and I think the Score Act is a great first step for us to move forward. And on behalf of the Big 12 Conference, we are all in favor of it and we'd like to see a sense of urgency. We need something done soon because if not, our university is going to suffer, our student athletes will suffer and we need help. So we appreciate you bringing that together today. Well, it's an honor to do it. I just hate to see what you're going through. I hate to see what's happening to our country, essentially, because this is our country. This is the youth of our country and it's a terrible thing that's happening because you know, these crazy payments that are being made colleges are not going to be able to help themselves. Just like the NFL owners would not be able to help themselves if they didn't have a cap. But you have a much bigger problem than a cap and you have a complexity problem and you have a problem where women are being thrown out of sports like at levels never seen before and you're going to have other things that come up that nobody's even thinking about right now and you're not going to be able to solve these problems. You're just not going to be able to solve these problems. You know, Ted said something before that the Democrats, I think Eric was alluding to it, but you have a lot of Democrats in the Senate that I hear are opposed to almost anything. So if you do, and I have to deal with these people all the time, okay, you saw them the other night, they wouldn't stand up for a soldier that was a great hero and got the Congressional Medal of Honor. They sat there, they wouldn't stand up, they wouldn't even smile, they wouldn't clap for a woman that lost her daughter whose throat was slashed, they wouldn't stand up, they sat and they didn't stand up, they didn't do anything. And we have to deal with these people. But Ted, you said that there are seven Democrats that will not vote. Yes, Eric, you know the situation better than almost anybody in the room, except maybe me. I have to deal with it even more than you. But you know, if you've got all these hard-line Democrats that want to see everything fail, it's a problem. You know for a fact these people would vote no. What we need at least seven who will get to yes, because that's how we get to 60, right now the score act has zero. So I'm glad the House is moving it and they've got some Democrats in the House, that's beneficial and I think when the House passes it, that momentum is helpful. And there are a number of Senate Democrats, I mean I've spent literally thousands of hours negotiating with my Democrat colleagues and there are a number who want to address it, but it is their political leadership that is telling them to stop. And so what has got to happen is the folks in each of the states need to say to your elected Democrats, if you don't act, we're going to lose what is so extraordinary about college sports. And it needs to be something that is in the middle that's a compromise. Ted, you've already lost it. You've already lost it. Colleges are losing four, five hundred million dollars and they haven't even started yet. So you've already lost it in the true sense and you've lost something else. It's like it's ugly what's happened to sports in college before it was beautiful. It was a beautiful thing and now it's very ugly, it's become very ugly. And I think you're right, you're going to have people that will never vote for anything no matter what you agree. You could agree to everything that's perfect and they will never vote. And I'm not doing this as a practical person. No matter what you agree to, you have people in the Senate and in the House that will never vote for it even if it's good for our country, even if it's great for the player, great for the college and great for our country. And they will still vote no because they're cuckoo. They've got problems. Maybe it's problems at home, Cody, but they have problems. So that gives us problems. And I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to sit down with some other people in this room like urban, like coach, a very fine coach, Nick, who would have that, you want to let how many six national championships? You could have done better. You had a couple of games. Did you win seven? What did you six? Seven. Seven. All right. So I think he qualifies, right? But I'd like to sit down with some of the very talented people in this room and we'll pick them out if you'd like to volunteer, volunteer. And I'd like to sign an executive order that I'll write myself based on common sense. And it'll be something that people will be sort of happy about. Some will be sort of happy. Others will be sort of happy. And maybe that's a good thing. There'll be a few people that won't like anything. But I'd like to write an executive order based on some of the very great talent in this room. And we will be sued and we'll go before a court. And maybe, maybe we'll have a judge that's realistic, reasonable, and wants to do a favor for the country because that's the only way this is going to be solved. So I'm going to sit down and I'm going to write an executive order based on many of the statements made today. Many of the statements I've been hearing over the last year about what a disaster this is for colleges, for the players, for the families, ruining families, ruining everything. And we're going to do a very well thought out executive order. A lot of you are going to be involved in that. Anybody that would like to just let me know. And that'll be placed before the courts and hopefully a judge who's a real judge, a compassionate judge, and a judge with common sense will get it approved. And maybe it won't. And maybe it won't hold up. Maybe they'll say you can't do an executive order, in which case you say welcome to the court system of this country, which has gone totally out of control, totally out of control. And maybe not. But that's the only way you're going to get this done. So I'm going to write an executive order and the executive order is going to be based on great common sense. And it's going to let colleges survive and players survive and let a lot of people be very, very happy. And let's see if we can get it through the court system, which we might not be able to do. In which case, I guess we'll have to meet again. And we'll probably be through the same system. Look, if this doesn't work, colleges are going to be destroyed. Women's sports are going to be destroyed first before anything, before anybody, before anything. Women's sports are already being cut in every college. The first thing they're cutting, which is very unfair, is women's sports. And then they're cutting lesser sports, sports that are very good sports, great sports are being cut. And you're going to be left with football. And the football is going to lose so much money that the colleges are all going to go bankrupt, all because of a bad number of decisions made by courts, including, I guess, the Supreme Court. If you say it was a bad decision in the Supreme Court, I think the Supreme Court ought to be ashamed of itself for a lot of reasons, okay? A lot of reasons. I got to live with these people. And I say this, and they'll only vote bad. And I couldn't care less at this point. They have hurt this country so badly, because they haven't had the guts to do what's right. So, and I can tell you about other things, too, not just this. So we're going to do an executive order. And I think it's going to be an executive order that the people in this room, and the students, and the colleges will be proud of. Whether or not it holds up in court, I can't tell you that. But you're not going to get it through the Senate, and you're probably not going to get anything through the House, because you have a bunch of lunatics that you have to deal with, Mike, and better you than me. Go ahead. Well, I applaud the effort for an executive order, and I think everybody around the table is grateful for that. Might I suggest, Mr. President, that while you're using the Article II authority, that we still work in the lane of Article I, the playbook has to be wider than that, I think. And so what I would suggest, and humbly before everyone here, is that we take, I think almost everyone around the table we've heard today believes that at least the SCORE Act is a base to work from. Can we still continue to try to work through that? We do have some Democrat support, and as was said, we've got some fine points to get to. We'd love to work with you on it. Okay. And what I think is, and what I was hopeful for, is that the leaders around this table representing such a broad array of interest and groups around the country and both parties, that the influence, collective influence of the, I hate the word collective, Coach Meyer, I'm sorry, I keep saying, but the influence of all the people around this table could help us get some of those critical Democrat votes in the Senate. And I don't think we should or could abandon that effort. We try it. I'm an optimist. I think you go both ways. Yes. Let me do an executive order. You go ahead and play games with these people. Okay. Okay. We'll give it the quarterback. Give it a shot. And maybe the fact that we do the one helps you get the votes of the other. Okay. Does that sound okay, Randy? Yeah, I think so. And I think at the end of the day, Mr. President, as you've heard here, we need an antitrust exemption. And the only people who can do it are the Congress. And I heard from all the senators and the representatives, and I agree the SCORE Act is a start, but with your leadership, I really do believe we can move the ball. I have ideas, brilliant people here have ideas where we can add on it. And based on my conversations with Democrats, I think they want to do this. I think the Congresswoman said that. And I think that there's a way to do this. And your executive order, again, showing leadership, stepping out, is good. But I think we go on both. Don't forget the executive order can then be put before Congress and Congress can vote on it, change it a little bit, vote on it. But I'm looking to do it straight and let Congress go a different path. And, you know, you may get a judge that understands what's happening, and you may get some very good opinions coming out of a very smart judge who will be loved all over our country, as opposed to hated and disrespected. So that's it. So, Randy, could I ask you to do the following? Either a sampling of them or get everybody in some form, come up with a proposal, play with the SCORE Act, or do something different than the SCORE Act, but maybe you use the SCORE Act as a base. I separately will get some of the people in this room, and we're going to do a really good executive order. And maybe Jim will put that executive order in front of the Senate and the House. And who knows? Maybe we get a vote. And maybe we don't. But I'm talking about not even going before the Senate and the House, just having an executive order where we'll be sued and we'll go before the courts. And here we go again. But I think at the same time, you go down a separate track. Is that all right? Okay? Is that okay? Good. Other than that, we've had a great time. The press will take one or two questions, please. I think President Trump, it sounds like the Russians are helping Iran target and attack Americans now. That's an easy problem compared to what we're doing here. But can I be honest? It's just, I have a lot of respect for you. You've always been very nice to me. What a stupid question that is to be asked at this time. We're talking about something else. Can we keep this maybe a little bit? Go ahead, please. Thank you, Mr. President. My question is for eligibility. As you know, my son, Joe, is a high level D1 athlete, third year Relief Mentor, University of Maryland. How was that? Where were you? Who said that? Because I've told you. That's all right. Thank you. But the eligibility thing is a disaster in the NCAA. You have the Red Shirt System. You have the Medical System. It's all being scanned. And in a week or two, division, the second division, D2 is passing a blanket five-year eligibility without medical, without Red Shirt, just a five-year eligibility. That can be solved in D1 with the commissioners in this room right now. Why don't we solve it? Okay. Thank you very much. I'd like to know the same thing. You know why you're not going to solve it? Because we've had some very, very bad, incompetent decisions. Things that were routine before, that were solved long before. Now you're into a brand new system. Yes, ma'am. Hi, Mr. President. Thank you. Could you tell us what went into your decision to replace Secretary Nome with Senator Mark Wayne Mullen? Is it possible to stay on this subject just for once? You know, just for once. Boy, oh boy. Anybody have any questions on this subject? Thank you, Mr. President. What is your timeline for either the executive order that you just mentioned or the legislation that the members of the committee... I will have an executive order within one week. Well, would it take effect if it'll be very... Okay, this is the war room. We are passing now to the John Solomon show. We're going to continue to cover this live on Real America's Voice. And we're going to see how it does. Okay. But I'll have an executive order which will solve every problem in this room, every conceivable problem within one week. And we'll put it forward. Do you owe back taxes or you haven't filed your taxes in years? Now is the time to resolve your tax matters. With the national conversation around abolishing the income tax, the IRS is fighting back, improving. It's here to stay by becoming more aggressive than ever before. 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