NCAA President Charlie Baker Addresses Trump Executive Order, Tournament Expansion at Final Four

Baker was optimistic about the executive order, signaling that he was encouraged that issues facing college athletics were at least being talked about a bit more seriously at the congressional level.

“Well, I guess the first thing I'd say is that we appreciate the attention that he's brought to this issue,” Baker began. “I mean, there's no question that the conversations in the House and the Senate both picked up after we had our big group meeting in DC and a number of the issues that he raises in the executive order, which are things certainly that we've been dealing with, we've either moved to solve or currently working on. And based on the conversations we've had with people in Washington, a lot of what's in that executive order is consistent with those conversations as well. People talking a lot about eligibility. People are talking a lot about state laws that conflict with the ability to create national standards. People are talking a lot about those kinds of things. And I think it's appropriate that he made it pretty clear he thinks there needs to be a bipartisan solution on the congressional side. 

“So I mean, from my point of view, I want people paying attention to this. I want to pay attention to the same stuff we're paying attention to. And I like the fact that people seem to be working toward an answer. And there were a number of Democrats who said what I would describe as some reasonably positive things about some of the elements of it. So at a point in time in Washington where there aren't a lot of people on both sides saying nice things about much of anything, I thought that's helpful.”

On the executive order’s proposal to keep eligibility to five years of play…

A key piece of Trump’s executive order was the goal of keeping eligibility to five years of play for student-athletes. Several high-profile eligibility cases have come to the forefront in recent months, none more prominent than Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who sued the NCAA to earn an extra year of eligibility. The NCAA appealed the ruling in Mississippi Supreme Court, but the appeal was ultimately denied, and Chambliss is set to play against this fall. When asked about the enforceability of Trump’s proposed order, Baker unsurprisingly voiced his support.

“No, let's talk about the eligibility thing for a minute. How does that work? We win way more of those than we lose, right?” Baker said. “And a very small percentage of the membership actually ends up in court. 90% of the people who don't get what they want on a waiver request to extend the student athlete's eligibility don't go to court. It's a very small universe here that we're talking about and an even smaller universe that wins in court. And part of the problem with that is the length of time it takes to process that out to the complete end. We just yesterday, we got an appeals court decision in West Virginia on a bunch of cases where the judge who originally ruled on those ruled for the student athletes. The appeals court ruled against the student athletes or for their request and ruled in favor of the NCAA. 

“And I think, so the thing I hear from ADs and coaches and others is we didn't get our waiver of proof. We understand why, rules are rules, but if my competition is going to go to court and find some judge somewhere who's going to grant their student athlete the opportunity to play, am I really doing the right thing on behalf of my institution? When do you think all this will get resolved? And the answer to that is courts take a long time. So I think part of the message from him is, can we figure out some way to push this a little harder through the legislative process and get something on the books that works and represents what most people are looking for at this point, which is a much simpler eligibility process, which we've been talking to our committees about.”

On Trump’s call to end "unscrupulous” agent behavior in college athletics…

Trump’s executive order called for the end to pay-for-play schemes and a ban on “unscrupulous” agent behavior in negotiations for player compensation. While pay-for-play has run rampant in the NIL and revenue-sharing era thus far, could agents really be barred from a place in college athletics? 

Baker believes that could be up for discussion and interpretation over the coming months.

“That part I think is sort of subject to debate and discussion. I mean, I've talked to enough people about that issue in particular that we are having some pretty interesting conversations with the membership about whether there's some way to create a little less chaos around that for the membership and frankly for the student athletes as well. The amount of traffic that takes place in that space is insane. And it's 24/7/365. I talked to coaches and ADs who said they've had entire teams that have been bothered the minute they were eliminated from the tournament.”

A note on NCAA tournament expansion… 

Will the NCAA tournament expand to 76 teams? Multiple reports have indicated that it is trending in that direction. When asked about whether or not expansion was imminent, Baker effectively did not issue comment.

“We were told by the basketball committees to stop talking about that until after the tournament, which I think is a really good policy because we got all kinds of great stuff going on in Phoenix going on here. So let's play the games and then we can talk about that.”

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as NCAA President Charlie Baker Addresses Trump Executive Order, Tournament Expansion at Final Four.