Buckeyes divided over Trump's college sports shake-up | Opinion
David J. Jackson is a professor in the Bowling Green State University Department of Political Science and president of the BGSU Faculty Association. Big-time college athletics play a major role in American culture, especially here in Ohio, where Ohio State University Buckeye football can sometimes feel like something of a religion in terms of fan devotion.
College sports are a bigger business than ever, and the “student-athletes” who play on Saturdays have gained a lot of power recently, through Name/Image/Likeness money, the right to receive direct payments from universities and the unlimited right to transfer from one program to another. While Buckeye Nation remembers fondly the days of Woody Hayes and three yards and a cloud of dust , those days are long gone. The 2024 national championship roster enjoyed $20 million in NIL funds, and after not being as involved with attracting transfers as other schools, OSU signed 17 in the 2026 transfer cycle.
Not everyone is happy with the new landscape in big-time college athletics. In March, President Donald Trump hosted a “Saving College Sports” roundtable at the White House, which included “politicians, sports celebrities, media executives, conference commissioners, and university presidents, chancellors and athletic directors. ” The attendees all agreed that the current situation is untenable.
Trump made good on his promise to issue an executive order to remedy the situation, even though his legal right to manage the rules of intercollegiate athletics appears constitutionally murky at best. It would limit college athletes to five years total playing time and would permit them to transfer from one university to another only once. What Ohio voters say Recent polling suggests this not a popular move, among Ohio voters at least.
Between April 7 and 14, the Democracy and Public Policy Network at Bowling Green State University conducted through YouGov a survey of 1,000 Ohio registered voters. Through weighting, the sample is 49% men, 82% White, 12% Black, and voted for Trump by a margin of 51% to 40%. Fully 41% of respondents are Republicans, while 28% are Democrats and 26% are Independents The margin of error is +/- 3.
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