Texas Tech NIL collective founder Cody Campbell to co-chair President Donald Trump college sports commission

Texas Tech board chairman Cody Campbell will serve as the co-chair of President Donald Trump’s college sports commission alongside Nick Saban, On3’s Pete Nakos reported. Campbell founded the Texas Tech-focused NIL collective, The Matador Club.

Campbell was a co-founder of The Matador Club in February 2022 and was the main financial source of Texas Tech’s top-ranked transfer portal class this cycle. He also sold his company, Double Eagle, to Diamondback Energy for $4.1 billion in cash and stock in February. Campbell took over as chairman of the Texas Tech Board of Regents on April 14.

On3 confirmed Saban would be a co-chair of the commission, which Yahoo Sports first reported Wednesday, and the other would be a prominent college athletics booster. Campbell will fill that spot, working alongside Saban.

The commission on college sports is expected to “deeply examine the unwieldy landscape of college sports, including the frequency of player movement in the transfer portal, the unregulated booster compensation paid to athletes, the debate of college athlete employment, the application of Title IX to school revenue-share payments and, even, conference membership makeup and conference television contracts,” according to Yahoo Sports. It is expected to be a months-long endeavor.

Where Cody Campbell stands on key issues

Nick Saban has been outspoken about the need for regulation and national legislation when it comes to NIL and the current college athletics landscape. Cody Campbell also shared ideas for changes, notably with regard to media rights – starting with an amendment to the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961.

“College sports, unlike pro sports, does not have the right to pool its media rights together and act as a single seller to the media companies,” Campbell said last month on SiriusXM College Sports Radio. “Because of that, the conferences compete with one another for media deals. That dynamic has caused them to get less money per viewer than the pro sports do. The NBA has about half as many viewers as college football, but they get twice as much money than college football does, which is crazy. And it’s all because of this legal setup that we have. That needs to change. So everybody needs to come together, pool their media rights and do a single, big media deal that will give college football more control and give college football more money. So expand the pie.

“And then, I think through that, you do some kind of more fair revenue-distribution system with respect to the media rights. Colleges, places like Alabama, like the University of Texas, like Oklahoma – who have big followings, who have big stadiums, who have big licensing deals – they’re still going to have a huge economic advantage. But a New Mexico or a Wyoming or a Toledo will still be able to sustain an athletic department under a system like that.”

Campbell also pointed out expanding conferences, including some such as the Big Ten and ACC which span coast-to-coast. He said it’s a product of the current media rights setup under the Sports Broadcasting Act, which is why he further called for a reorganization.

“I think that we need to rethink the way that we organize our conferences,” Campbell said. “And again, because of the way that they have to do our media deals, these conferences are encouraged to have a school or schools in every single time zone because they want to have games at different times of the day.

“So we have these transcontinental conferences that make absolutely no sense. They cost too much money for travel, they’re too disruptive to the student-athletes – especially in the non-revenue sports again – and I think we need to reorganize and rethink just the way that we do college sports in general.”

More on Donald Trump’s college sports commission

President Donald Trump is also reportedly considering an executive order which would create more scrutiny around NIL, according to the Wall Street Journal. That news came down after the president and Saban met ahead of last week’s commencement address at Alabama.

News of President Donald Trump’s plan to consider an executive order and form a commission – which is expected to have Nick Saban and Cody Campbell as co-chairs – come with the backdrop of the House v. NCAA settlement, which continues to go through the final approval process. Attorneys filed an updated brief Wednesday evening that sought to address Judge Claudia Wilken’s concerns about roster limits, and the plan would create a grandfather provision for athletes who lost their spots. A decision on final approval is expected in the coming weeks.

However, plaintiffs’ attorney Steve Berman called out Saban and Trump’s discussions as the settlement seeks final approval. Legal experts say an executive order could create more problems, and Berman called for the conversations to cease while both sides work toward final approval for the House v. NCAA settlement.