Donald Trump signs order, seeks to clarify NCAA athletes’ employment status

President Donald Trump ordered members of his cabinet to develop a plan in the next 30 days aimed at preserving university sports opportunities and preventing university athletes from becoming professionals, according to a decree he signed on Thursday.

The order of Trump defines specific directives for the preservation of sports scholarships based on the annual income of a sports department. He also declares that schools should not allow athletes to accept “third-party and Pay-Play payments”. The order stipulates that the Secretary of Education Linda McMahon should use future federal funding decisions among other tools to force schools to respect the administration policy.

NCAA has always prohibited payment payment for the third party game. In recent years, university sports leaders have struggled to find ways to stop boosters in the richest schools in the industry to pay athletes through contracts that are paper approval agreements but which actually work as de facto wages.

“A national solution is urgent to prevent this situation from deteriorating beyond reparation and protecting unrevised sports, including many female sports, which include the backbone of intercollegial athletics,” said Trump in order.

The decree stipulates that third -party approval agreements should continue to be authorized as long as they reflect a “fair market value”.

The conferences of Power 4 launched a new law enforcement agency this month – the College Sports Commission – in order to verify all the athletes of third -party agreements to sign to ensure that these are reasonable payments for endorsements rather than a veiled payment arrangement. It is not yet clear if or how the new administration policy could help strengthen these efforts.

The longtime ban of the NCAA to pay athletes collapsed in the last decade under pressure from a litany of legal challenges and state laws. The association and its power conferences have officially accepted an antitrust regulation in June which will allow schools to pay up to $ 20.5 million directly to their athletes during the upcoming academic year. These payments are also designated as approval contracts on paper, but will likely serve de facto wages.

Steve Berman, one of the co-avocados of the antitrust colony applicants, criticized Trump for trying to intervene.

“Clear and simple athletes do not need Trump’s help, and he shouldn’t help NCAA at the expense of athletes,” said Berman last week. “… Following our case, college athletes are now free to conclude their own offers. For Trump to want to set foot on their competition capacities is unjustified and flouts his own philosophy on the supposed” art of the ”.

The president of NCAA, Charlie Baker, said that the association would always need the help of the federal legislators to create a competitive balance in university sports. More specifically, Baker and other university sports leaders asked the Congress to provide them with an antitrust exemption so that they can enforce the rules, many of which would limit the power to win athletes.

“The association appreciates the emphasis put by the Trump administration on the opportunities that change the life that the Sports college offers millions of young people and we are impatient to work with student-athletes, a bipartite coalition at the Congress and the Trump administration to improve university sports on Thursday for the coming years” in a press release concerning the trump decree.

A presidential decree cannot provide antitrust protection to the NCAA. However, a bill that would give the NCAA Broad Antitrust Leeyway was approved by two different chamber committees this week. It could be called to a full vote in the House of Representatives in September. The bill, which has received very little support from the Democrats, should always go through the Senate.

The executive order on Thursday requires that the sports departments which have brought in more than $ 125 million in the last academic year must increase the number of scholarships they offer to athletes in non-revenue sports. Sports departments that have brought in at least $ 50 million cannot reduce the number of scholarships they offer in these sports.

The overwhelming majority of schools in the four electricity conferences reach the $ 50 million threshold, while around 30 to 40 schools have exceeded the $ 125 million mark in recent years. Many of these most winning schools have already publicly announced the intention to increase their scholarship total.

The Order also calls the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify the employment status of colleges of colleges in a way that “will maximize the advantages and educational opportunities” for all athletes. It does not provide any specific calendar for these agencies to act.

While schools are starting to pay their athletes, university sports leaders are categorically opposed to treating them as employees. These leaders say that many schools could not afford to align the same number of teams if all athletes are declared employees. They also say that most university athletes do not want to be employees.

Two distinct groups of athletes have asked the NLRB to recognize them as employees in the past two years. Both cases were abandoned shortly after Trump’s election. If the NLRB declares that university athletes are not employees, future athletes will not be able to form a union and negotiate more money or better working conditions.

Several football coaches recently declared that they thought it would make sense – and would offer more stability – if their players were considered employees and could negotiate collectively.

“The best way to do so is to do so where players are employees and you have a salary ceiling,” said Louisville coach Jeff Brohm in ESPN earlier this month. “If the players are paid, why don’t we do it in the right way? Amateurism is no longer there. Do not pretend that this is the case.”

There is an ongoing federal case (Johnson c. NCAA) which maintains that athletes should be considered as employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The lawyer’s lawyer in this case, Paul McDonald, previously argued that any action that prevents colleges athletes from being employees would be unconstitutional because she would deal with work athletes do as different from the work of other students who occupy jobs on the campus.