President Trump made at least 17 false or unfounded statements about college sports during a recent White House meeting.
Trump incorrectly blamed a ‘radical-left judge from California’ for issues like player pay, when many changes resulted from settlements or state laws.
The article refutes Trump’s claims about multi-million dollar quarterback deals, massive athletic department losses, and the widespread cancellation of women’s sports.
Less than a week since President Donald Trump held a big meeting about how to fix college sports, those who watched it and took part in it are still trying to process it.
What did Trump mean exactly? And what will he try to do about it next?
It didn’t help that Trump made at least 17 false, mistaken or unfounded statements about college sports during the meeting at the White House March 6, as counted by USA TODAY Sports. Such untrue statements tend to make a complicated situation worse. So here’s a guide to each of them for the sake of clarity:
1. Trump was seriously wrong about the judge
He blamed a “radical-left judge from California” for the problems in college sports, which include huge new expenses from direct payments to players and unlimited annual player transfers. Trump said this judge “made a horrible, incredible ruling” and turned it all “upside-down,” leading to where we are now.
This is not correct. He didn’t name her, but federal Judge Claudia Wilken has presided over big antitrust cases against the NCAA in California, including the House vs. NCAA settlement that led colleges to share up to $20.5 million this year with players — a huge new expense that’s created big budget problems. That was part of a voluntary agreement between the two sides, including the NCAA. It was not a ruling handed down by Wilken.
Wilken also presided over Alston vs. the NCAA and did rule the NCAA violated antitrust law in that case. The NCAA appealed that all the way to the Supreme Court, which upheld Wilken’s ruling by a 9-0 vote in 2021. But this is often mistaken as the case that allowed players to earn money for their names, images and likenesses (NIL) for the first time in 2021. It did not do that. The Supreme Court never mentioned NIL in its decision.
The Alston case instead only removed NCAA limits to compensation or benefits for players that were related to education. ‘The rest of the NCAA’s compensation rules are not at issue here and therefore remain on the books,’ Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote.
Other forces pressured the NCAA into finally allowing players to get NIL compensation in 2021, especially states that previously passed laws to approve it, including California (2019), Florida (2020) and Alabama (April 2020).
2. The judge wasn’t ‘radical-left,’ either
Wilken was appointed to the federal bench in 1993 by President Clinton, a Democrat. Her ruling in the Alston case was not exactly “radical” by any traditional sense. It removed restraints that were hindering free trade and competition in a capitalist system. She could have gone further in her ruling to disrupt the NCAA system but made a relatively narrow or conservative ruling against the NCAA instead. Then her ruling was upheld unanimously by a Supreme Court in which six of the nine justices were appointed by Republican presidents.
3. Trump made it sound like there was no appeal
Trump said this legal outcome “should have been appealed” and that “nobody can find out if it was appealed or not.” He was later corrected at the meeting to an extent regarding the Alston case. But just to be clear:
The House case ended in settlement between the two sides. If either side objected to the proposed terms, they could have kept fighting their case and appealed as desired.
4. There’s no $14 million quarterback
Trump said that “17-year-old quarterbacks” are being signed by colleges for $12 million to $14 million.
There’s no evidence of that. The top estimated NIL valuation for a player is $5.4 million for 21-year-old Texas quarterback Arch Manning, according to On3.
5. There’s no ‘seven-year freshman’
“We have a seven-year freshman… We’re seeing things we’ve never seen before,” Trump said.
Maybe he was confusing this with quarterback TJ Finley, who recently joined his seventh college team in seven years at Incarnate Word. He’s a graduate student who got extra years because of the pandemic in 2020 and a medical redshirt year.
6. There is a salary cap in college sports
Trump said if there were no salary cap in the NFL, “you’d see staggering losses.”
“We have no salary cap in colleges,” Trump said.
This is mixed up. The NCAA still forbids colleges from paying players directly for their play, but the House settlement allowed each school to give up to $20.5 million in NIL payments and other benefits to players this year. Those are both hard salary caps. It is true college players can get paid an unlimited amount for their NIL by third parties, just like Trump could for selling clothes and products with his name on it, as he does at his online store.
7. Penn State didn’t ‘lose’ $535 million
Trump said Penn State athletics lost $535 million last year.
Not true. The school reported it had that much debt in fiscal 2025, mostly because of renovations to its football stadium. That’s not lost money. It’s debt that was taken on by the school for something it wanted in return.
8. Florida State didn’t lose $440 million
Trump said that, too. It’s not correct. Same reason as Penn State. It’s debt the school took out largely to pay for facility upgrades. Nobody forced either school to do this. If these schools didn’t want upgraded stadiums, they wouldn’t have such high debt.
9. Rutgers didn’t exactly lose $95 million.
Trump said it was “just announced that Rutgers lost $95 million.” This is closer to the mark than what he said about Penn State and Florida State. Rutgers did report a $78 million budget deficit for fiscal 2025. It would have been worse if Rutgers didn’t provide athletics with $31 million in fees and support.
10. Women’s sports are not being canceled everywhere
“Women’s sports are being canceled all over the country,” he said. He also said women’s sports “are being cut in every college.”
Some women’s teams have been cancelled in recent years for different reasons. Iowa State recently canceled its gymnastics program but didn’t say it was financially motivated. Texas-El Paso did cut women’s tennis last year citing financial reasons.
But in the Southeastern Conference, commissioner Greg Sankey recently noted his league added a women’s team — volleyball at Vanderbilt.
11. Other nations do invest in Olympic athletes and champions
“No other nation in the world has built a system that develops champions in classrooms and on the field, producing Olympic heroes, professional legends and leaders of tomorrow all at once,” Trump said.
He was referring to the old American college sports system that compensated athletes with scholarships and not much more than that. He’d like that old way to come back somehow.
But it’s not true that the U.S. is the only country with a system to develop and educate its athletes. Authoritarian countries China and Russia take it to a different level, for example.
12. Jim Jordan’s wrestling record was 156-28-1
Trump said Rep. Jim Jordan, his Republican political supporter, was “virtually undefeated in college wrestling” except for maybe “one bad night.”
OK, Trump was just trying to flatter Jordan, who acknowledged he lost more than once. For the record, he was 156-28-1 at Wisconsin in the 1980s, according to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
13. These colleges are not ‘going to go out of business’
Trump said many colleges would go out of business or bankrupt because of the cost of college sports now. He again blamed the judge for doing something to “destroy” colleges.
But spending big money on athletics is discretionary for those universities that want to allocate funds for it or even bail their athletic departments out of deficits. If sports gets too expensive and risks the educational mission, they can choose to cut back or find ways to raise more money.
The irony is the Trump Administration has worked to defund many of these same universities, causing them hardship in other areas.
14. Everybody was not happy with old system
Trump wants to return to the old system before NIL and revenue-sharing with players.
“Everybody was happy,” he said. “And now you’ve got yourself a mess.”
The actual reason for the “mess” is everyone was not happy. That is why athletes sued the NCAA for change and won. No current athletes attended the meeting with Trump.
15. Women are not being thrown out of college sports
“You have a problem where women are being thrown out of sports like at levels never seen before,” Trump said.
To the contrary, the NCAA released data this month that said women’s participation in college sports reached a record high with 242,341 women athletes in 2024-25, the most recent year available.
16. The Supreme Court wasn’t responsible for this
By the end of the meeting, Trump was informed the Supreme Court upheld Wilken ruling unanimously in the Alston case.
“The Supreme Court ought to be ashamed of itself for a lot of reasons,” Trump said.
The problems in college sports aren’t one of them. Their decision in the Alston case is not responsible for the start of NIL, or revenue-sharing with players, or unlimited annual player transfers, or challenges to NCAA eligibility rules in state courts.
17. A ‘bad court system’ isn’t responsible, either.
“A bad court system has destroyed college sports and colleges in this country and a lot of lives,” Trump said.
The courts have merely acted as referees in the civil litigation that has rocked the NCAA. But there are other forces that led these cases to court in the first place.
As college coaches and athletic departments got richer with rising new media revenue, antitrust attorneys made the case for why it wasn’t fair for the NCAA to restrict the earnings of college athletes at the same time. NCAA rules weren’t legally sound enough to survive this challenge.
In the meantime, college sports leaders also didn’t have to fight change for so long and end up getting forced into something they don’t like. They led college sports to where it is, not some ‘radical’ judge from California.
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com