Dramatic changes in college sports have drawn the attention of the White House, and two prominent men from the world of college football are set to co-chair President Donald Trump’s commission on college athletics—an effort to get the train back on the tracks amid mounting issues in the collegiate model.
It’s too early to know how former Alabama coach Nick Saban and Texas billionaire businessman Cody Campbell will co-lead the commission and who will be on it. As Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s NIL legislative effort launched in 2023 languishes and administrators still await the House settlement’s final approval, patience has long run thin for substantive change in college athletics. One power conference official told CBS Sports they didn’t need any more college sports insiders in a group like this; rather, they wished for outsiders who can bring fresh ideas and aren’t lifers.
“We don’t need a committee to tell us what’s wrong with college sports, we know that,” the official said. “We need this group to cut through bureaucracy and actually get stuff done.”
Saban and Campbell have shared their positions on several pertinent issues recently, including NIL, the transfer portal, conference realignment, multimedia deals and how they would improve an unwieldy collegiate athletics system.
Both also have relationships with the Trump administration. Saban, who won six national titles at Alabama and retired after the 2023 season, bent Trump’s ear last week to discuss college sports legislation during a graduation ceremony at the University of Alabama. Campbell, the chairman of Texas Tech Board of Regents, hosted Vice President JD Vance at a Fort Worth Luncheon in September during the run-up to the presidential election. He’s connected in the…
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