Remy: ‘Turning Back the Clock’ in College Athletics Will Not Work
By Donald Remy
College athletics has always been a uniquely American institution. Yesterday, that institution again found itself at the center of a conversation with a sitting United States President.
A roundtable of roughly 50 leaders from government, athletics, broadcasting, business, and higher education met at the White House to hear a familiar message. The status quo is unsustainable, and action is necessary.
The President proposed issuing another executive order that he described as “all-encompassing,” this time promising to address every structural challenge currently facing college sports. He acknowledged that it would encounter legal battles and risk adverse court rulings. That reality tells you something about where we are. An executive order alone will not solve the complications college athletics faces.
The topics on the table ranged from conference governance and structure, media rights, funding for nonrevenue sports, athlete compensation, and antitrust exemptions. The SCORE Act was at the center of the legislative discussion.
As I wrote in Collegiate Capitalism, college athletics evolved into a sophisticated economic marketplace long before we were willing to acknowledge it. NIL simply made the economics visible. What we are witnessing now is a system trying to recalibrate in real time, without the governance structure that an enterprise of this scale has always required.
Notably, it was reported that no current college athletes nor their representatives were present.
The goal cannot be simply to turn back the clock. Athletes deserve the ability to benefit from their name, image, and likeness, and other freedoms and protections. The goal must be to build a framework that is fair, transparent, and durable. One that provides competitive balance, protects educational opportunity, sustains women’s and Olympic sports, and is honest about the economic reality of what college sports has actually become.
The conversation is no longer about whether reform is necessary.
The conversation is about whether we have the courage and the competence to get it right.