Trump Endorses Salary Cap in College Sports

The president said college sports programs could go out of business without salary caps.

President Donald Trump looks on during the swearing-in ceremony of U.S. Ambassador to India Sergio Gor in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on Nov. 10, 2025 Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

President Donald Trump on Nov. 11 called for a salary cap in college sports.

“Well, it is a very serious problem because even football where they give quarterbacks $12 million, $13-$14 million … all of a sudden you’re going to be out of control,” Trump said, calling into Pat McAfee’s show on ESPN.

“And even rich colleges are going to go bust because you’re not going to be able to do this. And you know they had the old way, they gave scholarships, they did lots of good things, but there could be some form of payment,” he continued. “But when they start bidding up the costs, look the NFL and all the leagues have caps.”

Trump went on to say that the money makes a difference in how good a team is.

“You don’t really have that in college sports, and when the guard comes along that weighs 350 pounds and he’s phenomenal and they say it’s the difference between having a great team and a lousy team, they gave him $10 million, that’s going to start happening pretty soon,” he said. “All of a sudden you’re going to have like NFL-type payrolls.”

Trump said that if there is no salary cap, college sports programs could go out of business.

“I don’t care how rich the colleges are, you don’t make that much money, even the most successful,” he said. “They’re not going to be able to do this. Bad things are going to happen unless we figure this out.

“Sports where there have tremendous interest, they’re getting rid of them, and frankly the college football is very big, but as big as it is, if they don’t do some very powerful caps, these colleges are all going to go out of business no matter how rich they are.”

In July, Trump signed an executive order titled “Saving College Sports” to address colleges’ profiting off an athlete’s name, image, and likeness (NIL). Critics have said that this gives the bigger schools an advantage by paying more for players.

The NCAA formerly prohibited athletes from profiting off their NIL. However, in 2021, the Supreme Court struck down the NCAA restrictions.

A court settlement this year allows athletic programs to use up to $20.5 million of their media and sponsorship revenue to pay their athletes in the 2025–2026 athletic year. The cap goes up every year until the 2034–2035 year.

Trump’s comments on ESPN come just days after he became the first president in almost 50 years to attend a regular-season NFL game. He was in the suites for the game between the Washington Commanders and the Detroit Lions in Landover, Md.