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When President Donald Trump hosts an event in the Oval Office and opens the debate to questions from the media, as he did Friday while hosting members of the 1980 Miracle on Ice crew, you get a lot of dumb questions.
I mean, I understand that opportunities to ask the president a question are rare, but with Jim Craig and Mike Eruzione available, is that the time to ask about Venezuela?
President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd before the start of the NFL Super Bowl 59 football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
Anyway, at least one member of the press asked a question that made a lot of sense and had to do with NIL.
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that’s appropriate, Like when the Miracle on Ice team played, the Olympics were strictly amateur, with most of the team coming from various college rosters.
If they had played more than 40 years later, they might have been making some of that NIL money.
But, as the president pointed out (and with which Senator Ted Cruz would agree), the current state of NIL is simply not sustainable and could cause serious damage to college athletics, and even the Olympic Games.
United States President Donald Trump, along with the 1980 United States Olympic men’s ice hockey team, holds a bill honoring the team in the Oval Office of the White House on December 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
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“I think it’s a disaster for college sports,” President Trump said. “I think it’s a disaster for the Olympics, because, you know, we’re losing a lot of teams. Universities are cutting a lot of their sports, you’d call them ‘minor’ sports, and they’re losing them in numbers that no one can believe. They were really training camps, beautiful training camps, wonderful, hard-working young people. They were training camps for the Olympics.
“And a lot of these sports that they trained so well in would win gold medals because of it. Those sports don’t exist because they’re investing all their money in football. And, by the way, they’re investing too much money in it, in football.”
President Trump noted that high-performance sports programs are not making enough money to sustain themselves, given the rate at which they pay highly sought-after players.
United States President Donald Trump, alongside Ohio State head coach Ryan Day, welcomes the 2025 college football national champions from Ohio State University to the White House during a ceremony on the South Lawn in Washington, District of Columbia, on April 14, 2025. Ohio State won the national championship by defeating Notre Dame 34-23. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
“They’re investing all their money and I know something about it,” President Trump said. “They won’t be able to stop. You have a university president. [saying]”I tell you, sir, if we give a guard seven million dollars, we’re going to win the national championship,” and they’ll give him seven and then they won’t win it.
“And even if they win it, universities can’t afford to pay the kind of salaries they’re talking about.”
