UGA president expected to attend Trump college sports roundtable

University of Georgia president Jere Morehead is expected to be among several sports industry leaders at a roundtable hosted by President Donald Trump on Friday.

The event is billed as a brainstorming session of sort, the likes of which represents a sign of the times in a rapidly shifting collegiate sports world rife with unprecedented litigation, business dealings and player movement.

Trump is meeting with more than three dozen college and professional sports leaders, along with politicians and dignitaries, at 4 p.m. on Friday at the White House.

Trump will serve as the chair of the roundtable event, with Florida governor Ron DeSantis and New York Yankees president Randy Levine in the vice chair roles.

Along with Morehead — whose attendance was confirmed by a UGA spokesperson — retired Alabama coach Nick Saban, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, NCAA president Charlie Baker, U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and Eric Schmitt and golfer Tiger Woods are expected to be in attendance.

The roundtable participants are expected to discuss and share ideas on the need and potential for collegiate sports reform, though no specific format had been revealed ahead of the event.

Morehead, per a recent USA Today article, is “the most powerful player in the most powerful conference in college sports,” and it’s believed he has the influence to “bring the SEC presidents and chancellors together, and be part of the answer.”

Morehead is the immediate past chair of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Board of Directors and previously served as president of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and chair of the SEC Executive Committee.

Trump has had other dealings in collegiate sports, as he signed an executive order titled “Saving College Sports” in July after Capitol Hill lawmakers shared concerns about the current NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) deals.

The College Sports Commission (CSC) was introduced as a new entity created by the power conferences to oversee the NIL and transfer landscape following the House vs. NCAA settlement last June.

But, as anticipated, there have been several lawsuits challenging the legality of what amounts to a clearinghouse positioned to approve/disapprove NIL deals.

Trump is expected to advocate for antitrust exemptions, according to Sportico legal expert Michael McCann, which could allow the NCAA and its member schools to set rules governing NIL, transfer rules, eligibility and revenue sharing models.

“You have to have a national standard to some degree, so you don’t have a patchwork of 35 different standards in different states where they’re competing against each other on a daily basis,” a White House official told West Wing Playbook on Thursday, per Politico.

Ohio State president Ted Carter, who sits atop one of the most powerful and wealthiest athletic programs in the nation — Ohio State ranks No. 2 in college sports valuation behind Texas, per CNBC — said last month when speaking on NIL that “it’s not sustainable over the next three years unless something changes.”

Trump’s roundtable initiative has been met with skepticism, in terms of producing meaningful results with any sort of immediacy.

Antitrust exemptions are rare; as Sportico cites, “some data shows that defendants of antitrust cases have won 97 percent of the time.”

The NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball have antitrust exemptions in place clearing the way for their respective collective bargaining agreements.