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Welcome to “Good Morning, Illini Nation,” your daily dose of college basketball news from Illini beat writer and AP Top 25 voter Scott Richey. He’ll offer up insights every morning on Brad Underwood’s team and college basketball at large:

 “SAVING COLLEGE SPORTS.”

That was the subject line of the email from the White House office of communications on Thursday. All-caps and everything. (Of course).

The body of the email? That was the latest executive order from U.S. President Donald Trump. Just more than 1,600 words on addressing what Trump clearly views as a threat to college sports.

“Yet the future of college sports is under unprecedented threat,” the executive order reads after extolling some of the virtues of college athletics. “Waves of recent litigation against collegiate athletics governing rules have eliminated limits on athlete compensation, pay-for-play recruiting inducements, and transfers between universities, unleashing a sea change that threatens the viability of college sports. While changes providing some increased benefits and flexibility to student-athletes were overdue and should be maintained, the inability to maintain reasonable rules and guardrails is a mortal threat to most college sports.”

The current iteration of college athletics is branded as an “out-of-control, rudderless system.” Where there’s bidding wars for players. A situation created where “an oligarchy of teams that can simply buy the best players” and university collectives feed more and more money into mostly football but also men’s basketball. 

Other college sports, apparently, will “soon cease to exist.”

Stumping for women’s sports and both men’s and women’s non-revenue sports is a worthy pursuit. How an executive order makes that happen is the fuzzy part.

“It is the policy of my Administration that all college sports should be preserved and, where possible, expanded,” the executive order reads. “My Administration will therefore provide the stability, fairness, and balance necessary to protect student-athletes, collegiate athletic scholarships and opportunities, and the special American institution of college sports. It is common sense that college sports are not, and should not be, professional sports, and my Administration will take action accordingly.”

(Here’s where, again, I’d ask exactly how).

Anyway, let’s break the meat of the executive order down into more easily digestible bites. Some noteworthy points as the executive order might apply to Illinois …

— Given the DIA had revenue greater than $150 million (it was $174.3 million in FY24 with roughly $760,000 profit and was expected at $190 million in FY25 with a modest surplus), the executive order would require Illinois to “provide more scholarship opportunities in non-revenue sports than duhring the 2024-25 athletic season.” 

The maximum number of roster spots now applicable following the House vs. NCAA settlement must also be permitted in those same sports. Football and men’s basketball are the only revenue generators for the DIA. That means these maxes for the following sports:

  • Baseball (34)
  • Men’s and women’s cross-country (17/17)
  • Men’s and women’s golf (9/9)
  • Men’s and women’s gymnastics (20/20)
  • Men’s and women’s track and field (45/45)
  • Women’s soccer (28)
  • Softball (25)
  • Women’s swimming (30)
  • Women’s volleyball (18)
  • Wrestling (30)

— Per the executive order, any revenue sharing with athletes should preserve or expand scholarships and opportunities in women’s and non-revenue sports. Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman said in June there would be an investment in increased scholarships in sports other than football, men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball, which are the core four in the revenue sharing plan.

— The executive order also includes a directive that “third-party, pay-for-play payments to collegiate athletes are improper and should not be permitted by universities.” 

Here’s the thing on that note. Third-party, pay-for-play has always been illegal. It happened through collectives, but the NCAA never had the ability to enforce any rules given the haphazard way name, image and likeness payments were rolled out. 

That’s now the bailiwick of the College Sports Commision through NIL Go. The CSC, of course, just gave up ground on booster-backed collectives after coming to an agreement with plaintiff attorneys in the House case Tuesday to treat collectives as any other business. The interpretation of “valid business purpose” — the standard by which Deloitte is approving or denying NIL deals — remains vague. Enough so that the hard cap of $20.5 million in revenue sharing became more of a soft cap with collectives still able to funnel money to athletes for what they might be able to argue would be a “valid business purpose.”

— There’s no carrot to the executive order, but there is a stick. Namely, a group that includes the Secretary of Education in consultation with the Attorney General, Secretary of Health and Human Services and chairman of the Federal Trad Commission will, within 30 days, “develop a plan to advance the policies” of the executive order through all available and appropriate regulatory, enforcement, and litigation mechanisms” like …

  • federal funding decisions,
  • enforcement of Title IX,
  • prohibiting unconstitutional actions by States to regulate commerce
  • and enforcement of other constitutional and statutory protections.

The most important one, I’d say, is in bold.

— Other items of note include the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations board “clarifying the status of collegiate athletes.” (As a reminder, the current administration is not exactly union friendly to begin with).

There’s also a section detailing work by the Attorney General and FTC chairman working in concert to find “legal protections for college athletics from lawsuits. (The NCAA must be thrilled given its recent track record).

The efforts to support women’s sports and non-revenue sports also falls in line with the section of the executive order “protecting the development of the United States Olympic Team.”