Executive Order 14400 directs federal agencies that contract with or award grants to certain colleges to evaluate violations of national college athletics rules. The order was signed April 3, 2026, and published in the Federal Register on April 9, 2026.
Sections 3 through 6 take effect Aug. 1, 2026. The order directs agencies to begin work at once so measures are in place by that date and can be carried out as soon afterward as possible.
The order limits the term higher education institution to colleges that report at least $20 million in revenue from intercollegiate athletics in the preceding academic year. That figure is to be adjusted each July 1 by any percentage rise in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers.
Agency heads that contract with or provide grants to those colleges shall, as appropriate, evaluate violations of applicable, lawful governing-body rules in effect on Aug. 1, 2026. The review covers eligibility limits, transfers between colleges, revenue sharing with student-athletes, and improper financial activities. The order says the question is whether a violation is a cause serious or compelling enough to affect the recipient’s present responsibility.
The order defines improper financial activities as specified acts by a covered college or by its officers, agents, affiliates, or representatives. Those acts include taking part in a fraudulent name, image, and likeness scheme, and knowingly accepting contributions from people who do. They also include using federal funds for name, image, and likeness or revenue-sharing payments, or for any pay or perk given to a head coach, an assistant, a general manager, a recruiter, or anyone else who coaches or runs a team. Interference with a student-athlete’s contract with another covered college, including a scholarship agreement, is listed as well.
Under the order, a fraudulent name, image, and likeness scheme means paying above actual fair market value for goods or services, including those rights, in connection with a student-athlete’s participation, including through collectives or similar entities. The term does not include revenue sharing that follows the governing body’s rules. It also does not include fair-market pay from a third party not affiliated with a college athletics department, for a valid business purpose promoting goods or services to the public for profit, at rates like those paid to people who are not student-athletes there, and not tied to one college’s athletics program.
The order says the interstate governing body should, before Aug. 1, 2026, establish a prohibition on colleges’ use of federal funds for name, image, and likeness or revenue-sharing payments or for coaching or athletic compensation, in line with federal law and contract terms. It also says that body should prohibit improper financial activities regarding student-athletes, including collectives or other methods used for third-party pay-for-play. An interstate governing body, as defined in the order, sets common rules for varsity teams and competitions and is not itself a conference.
The order says that body ought to talk with student-athletes and, as it chooses, revise or make clearer its rules before Aug. 1, 2026, as law and court orders permit, to protect women’s and Olympic sports and colleges’ financial stability. Items it says the body should establish include age-based eligibility limits under which participation lasts no more than five years, with limited exceptions for military service, missionary service, and other absences in the public interest, and under which professional athletes cannot return to college athletics.
The order also says the body should allow one transfer with immediate playing eligibility during that five-year period, and one more if the student-athlete earns a four-year degree. It should provide medical care for athletics-related injuries during enrollment and for a reasonable period after. It should implement revenue sharing in a way that preserves or expands scholarships and opportunities in women’s and Olympic sports, create a national student-athlete agent registry, and set reasonable protections against excessive agent commissions.
The director of the Office of Management and Budget, after consulting the Administrator of General Services, must tell agencies that award contracts and grants how to follow the order and how the policy on suspension and debarment applies to the violations the order describes. The Administrator of General Services shall propose, consistent with law, a regular collection of information to help those agencies evaluate compliance.
The Secretary of Education shall weigh suitable steps, including a regulation if needed, to require regular reports of roster spots by varsity team as of the first scheduled contest, and of how much is spent on athletics-related student aid and other payments, broken out for men’s teams and for women’s teams as a whole. The Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission must act as needed to apply two statutes cited in the order to misconduct by agents for student-athletes and by related people or groups.
The Attorney General must take suitable steps to advance well-founded lawsuits aimed at striking down state statutes that clash with the governing body’s rules and that discriminate against out-of-state commerce, unduly burden or impede interstate commerce, impair a contractual relationship, or are otherwise invalid under federal law. Relevant White House components and agencies are encouraged to consider input from collegiate athletics leaders, administrators, and other experts on carrying out the order.