The executive order aims to limit NCAA athletes to 5 years, 1 transfer

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday designed to limit how long athletes can play college sports and how often they can transfer between schools.

The order directs the NCAA to create rules that mandate college athletes play “for no more than five years” and allow them to transfer schools only once before graduation without sitting out a season. The rule changes are scheduled to take effect on August 1 A school that plays an athlete who does not meet these new limits risks losing its federal funding.

The order also requires the NCAA to update its rules to create a national registry for player agents and create policies that prevent schools from cutting scholarships or other opportunities to pay their athletes and women’s and Olympic sports.

“College sports cannot operate without clear, agreed-upon rules regarding pay and player eligibility that cannot be endlessly challenged in court, as is the case now,” the White House said in a news release about the order.

Multiple lawyers working with colleges and their athletes told ESPN they believe the justices will rule the president’s order unconstitutional and unenforceable if challenged in court.

NCAA President Charlie Baker said during a media availability before the women’s Final Four in Phoenix that he had not yet read the entire executive order, but from what he had seen on social media, “there are some things in there that are pretty consistent with what we’ve talked about with them and with Congress.”

“We need action by Congress to seal the deal on some of these issues, which is good because we do, and getting bipartisan agreement on some of these issues would be a really big deal,” Baker said. “Based on my own conversations with many Democrats and Republicans in Washington over the past two months, I think there is a lot of common ground.”

Asked why the NCAA needed an executive order to help resolve the issue, Baker said, “On some of these issues, it’s hard for us to do that without at least some support from the feds. Courts are a way to settle disputes, but it really takes a long time, and it creates a lot of uncertainty.”

Trump acknowledged that his administration would be sued when he mentioned his plans for the first executive order during a roundtable meeting with college sports leaders in early March. Trump has used threats to pull federal funding from universities as a negotiating tactic and as an attempt to implement other policies in his second term with mixed success. In September, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funding from Harvard as punishment for the university’s decision not to comply with an executive order related to alleged anti-Semitic behavior on campus.

Trump has expressed interest in helping the college sports industry find its balance multiple times in the past year. Dozens of college sports leaders joined Trump and other sports executives at a White House roundtable discussion in early March looking for ways to restore some power to the NCAA and its schools. Trump said at the meeting that he wanted to write an executive order within a week that would “fix every problem in this room.”

The NCAA has struggled to enforce its rules since a Supreme Court decision in 2021 that the organization was not exempt from antitrust laws, which prevent a group of businesses from limiting their labor market earnings potential.

Since then, the organization has changed its rules to allow athletes to transfer every year and has had mixed results in fighting dozens of lawsuits filed by athletes who wanted to continue playing after their eligibility expired. Current NCAA rules allow athletes to play four seasons in a five-year window.

Friday’s order is the Trump administration’s second attempt to use its executive powers to make some changes to college sports. His first order, signed in July 2025, had no significant impact on how the industry operated. Multiple college sports stakeholders told ESPN they hope the new order will serve as a strong signal to Congress, which has the power to provide more meaningful and sustainable change.

After more than five years of negotiating options and proposing bills, neither the U.S. House nor Senate has taken a full vote on any legislation related to college sports. The House has twice delayed voting on a bill known as the SCORE Act since September. Sources told ESPN this week that the bill could be amended and reintroduced sometime in April.

In the Senate, Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Maria Cantwell are actively negotiating in hopes of crafting a bipartisan bill this spring, according to sources on Capitol Hill. Cruz told ESPN earlier this year that it is “absolutely critical” that the new law includes language that would prevent college athletes from being considered employees of their schools. Many Democrats believe that employment and collective bargaining are the best paths to finding a sustainable future for college sports. Sources said the employment dispute remains the biggest obstacle to reaching a compromise.

“This executive order identifies some of the key issues facing college sports, including continued funding for women’s and Olympic sports,” Cantwell said. “Congress should continue to have bipartisan discussions about how to raise revenue to meet these goals. I’m glad to know the President wants Congress to pass something.”

The president’s executive order does not address employment or other major unresolved issues in college sports, such as Cantwell’s push for schools to share revenue from their television contracts.

ESPN’s Andrea Adelson contributed to this report.