Riley Gaines: College sports is broken – here’s how to fix it

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the NCAA is drowning in problems. And time and again, it’s managed to land on the wrong side of nearly all of them: Name, image and likeness, the transfer portal, eligibility rules, men competing in women’s sports. The list grows longer by the day, and leadership continues to fall short.

Earlier this week, University of Arkansas men’s basketball coach John Calipari spent nearly seven minutes in a press conference laying bare to what so many inside college athletics already know: the system is broken. He didn’t mince words. He gave the NCAA some guidance on how to stop operating as a corrupt sports enterprise ("fugazi" as he put it), so college sports can actually serve the athletes who make it possible.

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After the clips went viral, Calipari doubled down on X, writing, "I will continue to use whatever influence I have to ensure the health and longevity of our game."

I spent four years at the University of Kentucky while Calipari coached there, and I can tell you I have never seen him fired up in a press conference (and he was known for being fiery). And he’s far from alone. His outrage is not only understandable, it’s justified.

Higher education itself is facing a reckoning. Enrollment is slipping. Tuition is exploding. Parents are questioning whether four years and six figures are worth it, especially as campuses are increasingly overtaken by chaos, radical activism, and administrators more concerned with appeasing ideological mobs than educating students.

As private companies offer direct career pipelines and vocational paths that promise real financial upside, university presidents are scrambling to justify their relevance. Too often, they bend the knee to paid liberal protesters who seek to tear down American institutions, traditions and Judeo-Christian values rather than preserve them.

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And yet, even now, universities still possess one asset that has long unified campuses and inspired national pride: college football.

College football is the front porch of higher education. It’s the marketing arm for our most recognizable universities. When someone says they attended a Power Conference school, no one asks about their economics department. They ask about the football team, the rivalry games, the playoff picture or whether the starting quarterback will suit up on Saturday. A winning football program drives enrollment, energizes alumni and fuels funding across the entire university.

But today, college athletics (especially college football) are on dangerously unstable ground.

As coach Calipari highlighted, without serious reform, we are staring down the potential collapse of the college sports model altogether. Why do I care? 

Because if college athletics fails, women’s sports will pay the highest price. Title IX protections, Olympic development pipelines, and non-revenue women’s programs will be the first on the chopping block.

At a moment when women’s athletics is already under attack, the last thing America should do is allow the financial foundation of college sports to crumble. Women’s sports deserve protection, investment and respect, not further erosion from a broken system that no longer works.

College football once represented the best of America: grit, competition, community and the relentless drive to win. Today, its governing structure is fractured, weak and unsustainable. Like higher education itself, it desperately needs a reckoning coupled with strong leadership to deliver it.

President Trump’s return to the White House has made one thing unmistakably clear: when America demands strength, he delivers. His America First agenda restored national pride, brought clarity back to Washington and proved that this country does not shy away from big challenges. That same bold leadership is exactly what college athletics needs now.

The House settlement finally acknowledged what everyone already knows: college athletes deserve a fair share of the massive value they help create. But it also exposed an uncomfortable truth; the current system cannot survive as is. Division I football is the economic engine that funds nearly every other sport, from track and field to women’s swimming, gymnastics, and soccer. If football collapses, the entire ecosystem goes with it.

Yet conferences stubbornly cling to a failed media-rights model. Each negotiates alone, leaving billions of dollars on the table. This is money that could support student-athletes, women’s programs, and Olympic pipelines for generations to come.

Professional sports solved this problem decades ago. The NFL and NBA collectively negotiate media rights under antitrust protections provided by Congress through the Sports Broadcasting Act. The result? Competitive balance, massive growth and long-term stability.

College football deserves the same unity and strength. President Trump and Congress have the authority to make it happen.

With expanded antitrust protections, college athletics could negotiate media rights collectively, schedule marquee matchups that captivate the nation and generate billions in new revenue to stabilize programs across the country. That means more scholarships, stronger women’s sports and more opportunities for every athlete — male and female — pursuing the American dream.

This is about more than football. It’s about preserving an American institution that instills discipline, teamwork, faith in God, hard work and love of country. It’s about ensuring universities uphold those values instead of abandoning them.

President Trump has never been afraid to confront weak leadership or a failed status quo. When the system is rigged or broken, he fights to fix it, and he puts America first.

With his leadership and Congress’s support, we can restore fairness, defend Title IX, protect women’s sports and ensure that college football — and collegiate athletics as a whole — emerge stronger, prouder and more united than ever.

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