President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to prop up college athletics by limiting programs’ ability to steer money toward sports like football and basketball at the expense of others.

The order, which comes amid lawmakers’ heightened interest in having Washington play a role in regulating student-athletes, cast the current state of college sports in apocalyptic terms.

It claims that recent litigation has cumulatively chipped away at the NCAA’s ability to police athletes, and has threatened the viability of women’s sports and so-called Olympic sports like gymnastics as more money flows to athletes in revenue-generating programs and schools attempt to lure highly prized recruits from high schools or other colleges.

“Absent guardrails to stop the madness and ensure a reasonable, balanced use of resources across collegiate athletic programs that preserves their educational and developmental benefits, many college sports will soon cease to exist,” Trump’s executive order states.

To that end, the order requires athletic departments with more than $125 million in revenue during the 2024-2025 season to offer more scholarships in “non-revenue sports” than they did the prior year. Programs with less revenue are instructed to maintain or avoid disproportionately reducing such scholarships, or eliminate roster spots.

Separately, Trump’s order seeks to shield college athletics from further litigation and instructs the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board with “clarifying” the employment status of collegiate athletes.

Universities have fiercely resisted attempts to classify college athletes as employees, a designation that gained momentum during the Biden administration and would grant them a host of labor protections. A deluge of legal challenges by current and former athletes, as well as state attorneys general, have succeeded in allowing players to be compensated for their name, image and likeness — resulting in six- and seven-figure payouts for some stars — and undercutting restrictions on athletes’ ability to transfer between schools.

Trump’s order calls for the prohibition of the “third-party market of pay-for-play inducements,” but allows athletes to get paid “fair market value” for endorsements or other services. That largely duplicates part of a recently finalized legal settlement involving the NCAA, which governs most college sports programs.

The Departments of Justice, Education, Health and Human Services, as well as the Federal Trade Commission will have to develop a plan to effectuate Trump’s policy within 30 days.

It is not immediately clear how the White House intends to enforce such a directive, but the Trump administration has been aggressive in pushing its agenda on universities before, such as its efforts to bring colleges to heel for their handling of campus antisemitism.

The NCAA and universities have lobbied Congress to pass legislation that would cement their authority over the college athletics system. Two House committees on Wednesday advanced a bill that would bar student-athletes from being considered employees and, similarly to the executive order, shield intercollegiate sports officials from federal antitrust law.

Three of the committee chairs leading that effort praised Trump and said the legislation, known as the SCORE Act, “will complement the President’s executive order, and we look forward to working with all of our colleagues in Congress to build a stronger and more durable college sports environment.”

Trump’s executive order comes hours after Charlie Baker, the head of the NCAA, said such action would be largely insufficient to address the structural issues with the collegiate sports industry.

“Our focus for now really needs to be on trying to get this stuff dealt with through the legislative process because that, at the end of the day, is really the only vehicle we feel can deal with those issues,” he said at the National Press Club in D.C.

After Trump’s order was released, Baker issued a statement saying that the NCAA “appreciates the Trump Administration’s focus on the life-changing opportunities college sports provides millions of young people and we look forward to working with student-athletes, a bipartisan coalition in Congress and the Trump Administration to enhance college sports for years to come.”