After participating in President Donald Trump’s White House roundtable discussion on the future of college athletics Friday, University of Utah President Taylor Randall said he looks forward to future discussions on the path forward for student-athletes.
“Given the urgency for universities to address this issue, I’m hopeful continued conversations and action at the national level will lead to meaningful progress toward greater financial stability in college athletics,” wrote Randall in a statement released Saturday.
The gathering, chaired by Trump, was organized to discuss the many challenges in today’s college sports landscape and the need for large-scale reform. More than four dozen political, business, education and sports leaders participated in the discussion — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, New York Yankees president Randy Levine, NCAA president Charlie Baker and former college football coaches Nick Saban and Urban Meyer, per the New York Times.
Randall said “the disruptions created by conference realignment, the House v. NCAA settlement, NIL, and the transfer portal are making college athletics an increasingly unsustainable enterprise for universities.”
The University of Utah remains committed to supporting student-athletes and Olympic sports, he added.
The university “will continue to be deliberate and innovative as we work to keep our athletic programs financially sustainable and central to the student experience — while protecting our core missions of education, research and health care,” he wrote.
Randall said he looks forward to future opportunities “to join leaders from across sports, higher education, and government to discuss the path forward for college athletics and how we can continue providing opportunities for student-athletes while preserving the rich legacy of the college sports experience.”
After the event, Trump said he was going to produce an executive order to address the challenges.
“So I’m going to sit down, and I’m going to write an executive order based on many of the sentiments made (Friday), many of the sentiments I’ve been hearing over the last year about what a disaster this is for colleges, the players, the families, ruining families, ruining everything,” he said, per the New York Times.
