{"id":43043,"date":"2026-04-06T17:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T17:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=43043"},"modified":"2026-04-06T17:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T17:28:09","slug":"trumps-college-sports-executive-order-adds-chaos-to-an-already-wild-legal-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=43043","title":{"rendered":"Trump&#8217;s college sports executive order adds chaos to an already wild legal war"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hello and welcome to another edition of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Free Agent<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">! If you&#8217;re pregnant and about to give birth, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Sportsnet\/status\/2040643602875838648\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">maybe avoid hockey games<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014or else your child might be known for getting born during <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/game\/_\/gameId\/401803569\/golden-knights-oilers\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a 5\u20131 drubbing<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We&#8217;re coming to you a day early this week with reaction to President Donald Trump&#8217;s executive order that he thinks will fix college sports (it will not). We&#8217;ll start with that, move on to some sports TV news, and close with thoughts on the Masters ticket lottery. Giddy up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But first, congratulations to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reason<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8216;s own Phillip &#8220;The Ultimate Fris&#8221; Bader<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">on <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/fantasy.espn.com\/games\/tournament-challenge-bracket-women-2026\/group?id=983820f6-bb23-4a9c-b1a3-cb9c195fbff7\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">winning our women&#8217;s bracket challenge<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, followed by Carl &#8220;Milwaukee&#8217;s Best&#8221; Peterson in second. Yours truly came in third\u2014smart enough to pick UCLA to win, not chalky enough to beat Phillip and Carl.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"gf_browser_chrome gform_wrapper gform-theme gform-theme--foundation gform-theme--framework gform-theme--orbital incontent-email-signup_wrapper\" data-form-theme=\"orbital\" data-form-index=\"0\" id=\"gform_wrapper_38\">\n<div class=\"gform_heading\">\n<p class=\"gform_description\"><strong>Don&#8217;t miss sports coverage from Jason Russell and <em>Reason<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t                <iframe style=\"display:none;width:0px;height:0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2026\/04\/06\/trumps-college-sports-executive-order-adds-chaos-to-an-already-wild-legal-war\/about:blank\" name=\"gform_ajax_frame_38\" id=\"gform_ajax_frame_38\" title=\"This iframe contains the logic required to handle Ajax powered Gravity Forms.\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This certainly isn&#8217;t the first time Trump has tried to bring order to a chaotic situation and just ended up making it messier.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The president signed <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2026\/04\/urgent-national-action-to-save-college-sports\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">an executive order<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> late on Friday attempting to overhaul how college sports function. The order says college athletes can only play five seasons, and they must happen during a five-year window (even though <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/story\/_\/id\/48114754\/ncaa-appealing-ruling-granting-ole-miss-qb-chambliss-6th-year\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">state judges are already saying otherwise<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">). It also allows only one transfer (even though <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/5530608\/2024\/05\/30\/ncaa-transfer-rules-banned-permanently\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a 2024 antitrust legal settlement<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> already said the NCAA can&#8217;t restrict transfers). Any schools that accept an athlete breaking these rules risk losing their federal funding. It also asks the attorney general (<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2026\/04\/02\/pam-bondis-loyalty-to-trump-wasnt-enough-to-save-her-job\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">whoever that may be<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) to invalidate state laws that are in conflict with the order. The order takes effect on August 1.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet by the time you read this, the executive order <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/heitner\/status\/2040114663606591666\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">may have already been challenged<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and stopped in federal courts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You might think the president would be more focused on the big issues of the day, like inflation or the war he chose to start against Iran, but anyone who&#8217;s been a dedicated reader of this newsletter knows the president talks about fixing college sports almost every week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many people are frustrated with the constantly changing rules governing college sports, especially transfers and eligibility. A more proactive version of the NCAA may have taken the lead on these issues before the courts forced their hand. Instead, the NCAA has basically said there&#8217;s not much they can do, and asked Congress to figure out their mess. Now we have rules created by lawsuits that are ever changing and different by state.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These rules are, for good reason, not something the president can change with the swipe of a pen. But the Trump executive order has made the chaos even worse. Schools are stuck between a rock and a hard place: follow the president&#8217;s set of rules, or follow the rules that were set by various court decisions? They have to break someone&#8217;s rules, and that&#8217;s going to lead them straight back to court.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Apparently the real goal of Trump&#8217;s executive order is &#8220;to spur legislative action,&#8221; <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7169907\/2026\/04\/03\/trump-executive-order-college-sports-rules\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sources told <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Athletic<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But even rules passed by Congress are going to end up getting challenged on constitutional grounds. Attorneys&#8217; billable hours remain undefeated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The American college sports system is weird and unique. No other country spends as much time, energy, or money on collegiate sports. But Trump&#8217;s executive order is a great argument for getting federal government funding out of higher education altogether. &#8220;American universities spent $60 billion in federal money in 2023, more than 30 times what they spent in 1953, accounting for inflation,&#8221; according to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/18\/us\/trump-universities.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">calculations in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The New York Times<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Schools wouldn&#8217;t have to worry about the president taking all that federal funding away over sports regulations if they didn&#8217;t take any federal funding.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Did you know businesses don&#8217;t like competition, and often try to use the government to protect themselves? Fox Corp. and Sinclair Broadcasting certainly know it, since they&#8217;re trying to get the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to knock down league broadcasting deals with streamers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;Fox Corp. and Sinclair Broadcasting last Friday submitted statements to the FCC that effectively characterized the streamers as a clear and present danger to the local TV business, with Fox labeling the digital interlopers as an &#8216;existential threat,'&#8221; <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/business\/media\/2026\/fox-sinclair-challenge-nfl-antitrust-exemption-fcc-1234889161\/?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=exacttarget&amp;utm_campaign=The+Kicker+-+April+3+26&amp;utm_content=674553_4-3-2026&amp;utm_id=674553\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anthony Crupi writes for <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sportico<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Sinclair (which &#8220;operates or otherwise provides services to 185 TV stations,&#8221; as Crupi describes it) seems to feel entitled to the NFL. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thedesk.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2026-04-Sinclair-to-FCC-Sports-broadcasts.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their FCC letter said<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: &#8220;Sports programming is also critical to the financial model that supports local broadcast journalism. Without high-value live sports on broadcast television, local broadcast journalism will suffer.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The context here is that CBS is renegotiating its deal with the NFL, and FOX is expected to be up next. The old-school broadcasters are worried the NFL might replace them if they get a better offer from a more cash-rich streamer like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or Apple TV. So now Fox and Sinclair are crying foul to the FCC, hoping for regulation or any kind of government pressure to stave off the streamers. The FCC&#8217;s recent request for comment on sports streaming was, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2026\/03\/03\/formula-1-is-about-to-get-a-lot-more-american\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as I wrote<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, &#8220;clearly a shot across the bow of sports leagues\u2014a warning that the FCC may consider regulating games on streaming services in some way, or requiring leagues to broadcast every game on TV or the old-school regional sports networks.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Threats to old business models are how a competitive economy should work. That&#8217;s what happens when businesses innovate and deliver new benefits for consumers. Fox and Sinclair aren&#8217;t entitled to NFL media rights any more than the Cowboys are entitled to a Super Bowl: You&#8217;ve got to be competitive and earn it. But instead of competing, Fox and Sinclair are hoping that whining to the FCC will get them some help. Since they&#8217;re both known for favorable coverage of Trump, they might just get it\u2014and totally upend the landscape for streaming sports in the meantime.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With apologies to soccer, golf is the real beautiful game\u2014and this is the most beautiful week in golf, as the best golfers in the world head to Augusta, Georgia, for the Masters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But unless you have some truly incredible luck or truly incredible wealth, you probably won&#8217;t be there in person. Augusta National distributes Masters tickets via lottery. If you win their lottery, you can get tickets for $140 each. Your odds of winning the Masters lottery in any given year are under 1 percent. If you don&#8217;t get through in the lottery, you better have $17,000 to spend on a premium hospitality ticket. Heading over to a ticket resale website is not a great option. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2025\/04\/15\/the-masters-ticket-lottery-is-dumb\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As I wrote last year<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, &#8220;You can try to pay through the nose for a pass on the secondary market, but Augusta National has a strict ban on resale tickets and might not let you in\u2014so you risk spending $2,500 on a resale ticket, plus hundreds more on flights and lodging, just to get turned away.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Basically, as &#8220;Rick Golfs&#8221; points out below: &#8220;Now if you don&#8217;t win the lottery, you are screwed. Almost no chance of ever attending. Before you could at least bucket list it and do it once.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">What would you pay to attend the Masters?<\/p>\n<p>The Masters has officially surpassed The Super Bowl and World Cup as the most expensive sports ticket. <\/p>\n<p>$2,000 for practice round <br \/>$16,000 for Thursday <br \/>$8,000 for Sunday. <\/p>\n<p>Why? The Masters has started cracking down on resellers, so\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GXMC2Z7Fcr\">pic.twitter.com\/GXMC2Z7Fcr<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Rick Golfs (@Top100Rick) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Top100Rick\/status\/2040757969818902786?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 5, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Augusta National has every right to ban ticket resale, but their low prices are not ensuring the most dedicated people are getting in. Raising the price of a day pass, or just adding some extra steps to weed out more casual fans, would help.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The fact that these all happened in a one-run game is mind-boggling. Although I wasn&#8217;t actually all that impressed by the first two, which were mostly just well-timed jumps\u2014the last one shows absolutely no regard for his own body.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">All THREE of Jo Adell&#8217;s home run robberies from tonight \u2026<\/p>\n<p>Yes, you read that right ???? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bc0Wb9i1Ii\">https:\/\/t.co\/bc0Wb9i1Ii<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/axhyQFpLHD\">pic.twitter.com\/axhyQFpLHD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 MLB (@MLB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLB\/status\/2040644526583222377?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 5, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That&#8217;s all for this week. Enjoy watching the real game of the weekend, the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/watch\/player?id=cafdd1e4-5526-4e3c-8413-c367b3ddad37\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Houston Gamblers against the D.C. Defenders<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=g7Tt_NeN5ks\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">beer snake<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the UFL.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2026\/04\/06\/trumps-college-sports-executive-order-adds-chaos-to-an-already-wild-legal-war\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! If you&#8217;re pregnant and about to give birth, maybe avoid hockey games\u2014or else your child might be&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}