EXCLUSIVE: White House Confirms College Sports Panel With President Trump, Including A-List Attendees

The White House roundtable on how to help fix college sports hosted by President Donald Trump has been confirmed for Friday afternoon, with a list of A-List attendees. 

In an effort to navigate the current landscape of college athletics that is currently mired in plenty of controversy, President Trump is working to expand on the executive order signed last summer that aims at protecting mens and women's programs. 

According to a senior White House official, the list of names attending later this week include New York Yankees President Randy Levine, Nick Saban, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Texas Tech NIL co-founder Cody Campbell, NCAA President Charlie Baker and CEO of the USA Olympic Committee Sarah Hirshland. 

President Trump will serve as chair. Vice Chairs for the roundtable will include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Yankees President Randy Levine.

Multiple sources also tell OutKick that other Power-4 commissioners will be attending, which include Big Ten's Tony Petitti. This is in addition to a number of university Presidents and Chancellors, including Tennessee's Donde Plowman. 

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Over the past year, President Trump has relied on Texas Tech billionaire Cody Campbell and Nick Saban to lend their advice on ways to fix current problems plaguing college athletics. Right now, there are a plethora of lawsuits sitting in different courtrooms pertaining to antitrust claims and student-athlete eligibility issues. 

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One of the current problems is the current lack of enforcement, in large part due to lawsuits being filed in federal and state courts, which has forced the NCAA to engage in litigation just about every week. 

There's also the continuing repercussions from the House Settlement rolling out across athletic departments, with each school being allowed to spend just over $21 million per year on their rev-share budgets for athletes. But, what we've seen in the aftermath are the third-party NIL deals that have some schools spending over $40 million on their football rosters, thanks in large part to outside donors picking up the tab. 

Of the biggest concerns, schools are trying to navigate how to save certain sports from the chopping block, due to funding issues that are arising from the House Settlement. 

There is also the current argument over the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. There has been a recent push by some university presidents and chancellors to amend the act, and allow conferences to pool together their rights for broadcast. 

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The hope, which Louisville administrators discussed on Monday, would allow college athletics to go the route of the NFL, which would then create a bigger pie for schools outside of conferences like the Big Ten and SEC. 

In a joint White Page memo released last week, both commissioners promoted a study done by an outside third party on why pooling together television rights would not be in the best interest of their individual conferences, which sparked a harsh rebuttal from Cody Campbell, who President Trump has leaned on for advice over the past two years regarding the best routes to take in preserving college sports.