The Crisis in College Sports; Those Meeting to “Fix” It Still Won’t Include Athletes
OPENING STATEMENTS
The push to “fix” college sports is colliding with reality, and the people steering the conversation still seem determined to learn the hard way. On one side, you have institutional leaders and conference executives insisting that only more central control, more commissions, and more secret summits can save the system they built. On the other, you have courts, regulators and athletes themselves making it clear that the real crisis is not NIL money or transfers but a governance model that manages athletes instead of treating them as rights‑holders.
This week’s dueling meetings crystallize the problem. In Washington, President Donald Trump’s White House “College Sports Roundtable” today is expected to convene commissioners, presidents, athletic directors, media executives and former athletes to talk about NIL, the transfer portal and “saving” college sports. Lots of big, powerful names. But not a single current athlete or athlete‑chosen representative has a seat at the table. In Dallas earlier this week, university trustees, major donors and a handful of presidents huddled with Smash Sports, a private‑capital‑backed group pitching a pooled FBS media‑rights model that would rewire who controls billions in television dollars. Again, without any current players in the room.
These are not side shows. They are the latest examples of a leadership class that keeps trying to negotiate around athletes instead of with them, even as courts repeatedly warn that top‑down restraints on compensation and mobility raise serious antitrust and employment concerns. You cannot keep designing rules over athletes - whether that’s when they can transfer, how they can be paid, how many games they can play, what medical care and education they receive - and then act surprised when judges see them as a coordinated effort to control labor.
From a legal perspective, the blind spot is glaring. The “chaos” narrative that’s being pushed has merit. But it’s being driven by the same institutions that spent decades defending amateurism while quietly building an industry of nine‑figure coaching buyouts, conference realignment lotteries, and private‑equity‑friendly media deals. When those choices backfire, the blame gets re‑routed toward NIL collectives, the transfer portal, or supposedly entitled athletes exercising the few rights the courts have carved out for them. But the underlying legal structure has not changed: decisions about athlete work, health, and compensation are still being made by boards, presidents, commissioners and broadcast partners who rarely, if ever, have to share formal power with the people on the field.
That is not just a moral failure; it is a governance failure with legal consequences. Every time college sports leaders gather to restore order or try to influence Congress to do so - without athlete voices - they reinforce three core arguments that plaintiffs’ lawyers and regulators are already using:
That athlete compensation and eligibility rules are concerted restraints of trade imposed by collaborating institutions at the top of the market, not organic byproducts of education.
That athletes operate in practice as employees or at least as union‑eligible workers, given the level of institutional control and the economic stakes.
That procedural fairness is lacking in key systems, such as eligibility waivers, NIL deal review, transfer approvals - because athletes are dependent on institutions to initiate or explain processes that directly affect their careers.
When the Trump roundtable talks NIL or when Smash Sports pitches a new media‑rights trust, they are not just spitballing policy; they are laying down markers that courts will scrutinize in the next wave of litigation. And in each case, the absence of current athletes makes it harder to defend those decisions as “reasonable” restraints narrowly tailored to protect education, rather than broad attempts to preserve control over an increasingly professionalized labor market.
There is also a profound misallocation of time and resources in the current playbook. Instead of investing in transparent, market‑based frameworks that comply with existing antitrust law, college sports has poured millions into lobbying Congress for a federal antitrust exemption or legislative safe harbor. That campaign is unfair to athletes, who would be asked to surrender hard‑won rights to compete for market value. It also, at this point, seems a continued waste of time and money. Courts have been clear: if the industry wants protection, it must show genuine reform, not just a desire to re‑create amateurism under a different label.
The legally credible path forward is not a bailout from antitrust. It is a set of market‑based solutions that adhere to current law and treat athletes as participants in that market, not as compliance risks to be managed. That means:
Structuring NIL and revenue‑sharing systems that allow real competition for athlete services within clear rules, rather than backdoor caps enforced through clearinghouses and commissions.
Building eligibility and waiver processes where athletes can file directly, know their rights, and receive timely, written rationales that can be reviewed on the merits, not dismissed on technicalities.
Embedding athlete representation in any body that writes or enforces rules about compensation, playing conditions, and mobility—through bargaining units, empowered councils, or legally recognized associations.
The irony is that the people who claim to be saving college sports are the same people most resistant to these changes. And, without a critical party involved, they likely are creating additional issues that will be difficult to solve. They keep convening panels about what’s happening to the game while refusing to confront the simplest truth: the game is not being broken by teenagers with NIL deals; it is being broken by a governance model that still pretends they are not full stakeholders.
Legally and practically, the inflection point is here. College sports can keep chasing an antitrust exemption that is unlikely to arrive and would entrench all the problems that led us to this moment. Or it can accept what the law has been trying to say for years: if you want a stable system, build one that respects markets, honors existing rights, and finally puts the people who play the games inside the room where the rules get written.
EXHIBIT A
Speaking of eligibility and waiver processes, I don’t often refer to my specific cases, but this one is really important to student‑athletes. Earlier this year, I wrote about why the NCAA’s waiver system is broken and why athletes must be allowed to file eligibility waivers directly, not beg their schools to do it for them. Yesterday drove that point home, as Brock Murtha’s TRO was denied. The decision turned on procedural and jurisdictional issues, not on the merits of how the NCAA’s waiver and appeals process failed him—starting with institutional errors and missed deadlines that he could not control. In a world where athletes could file directly, Brock might be on the field with his Navy teammates right now instead of in federal court, and that is exactly the kind of avoidable harm this system was supposed to prevent.
EXHIBIT B
Iowa State’s decision to shut down its women’s gymnastics program is a shameful case study in administrative failure landing on athletes’ backs. After hiring a head coach with no prior college coaching experience, the department watched “complex internal conflicts” escalate, then chose to cancel the season and kill a 50‑year program rather than fix the problems it helped create. Former gymnasts and staff have been explicit: leadership ignored repeated warnings about the hire and chronic underinvestment, then blamed “unresolvable differences” to justify walking away. Scholarships may be honored on paper, but you can’t replace lost seasons, lost teams, or lost dreams with a press release. This is yet another example of administrators making a bad decision, and athletes paying the price.
ON THE DOCKET
Following the news this week that NIL deals are still getting held up, and how significant of a role some of these agreements play at P4 schools, I’m curious what may happen over the next few months. Reportedly, the College Sports Commission has rejected or stalled hundreds of agreements, and lawyers are now probing whether athletes are being illegally shorted on money they were effectively promised in recruiting and retention. Athletes did what they were told—log every deal, wait for clearance—and instead found themselves in financial and eligibility purgatory. So far, almost all arbitration challenges have been withdrawn or resolved quietly, but that won’t last once a major deal collapses. When the first player fully tests this system, the question won’t be whether they followed the rules. It will be whether the rules followed them.
FOOTNOTES
22
# of high-major scholarship basketball players who will have celebrated Senior Night this week, having played at just one school
