The annual football game between the United States Military Academy and the United States Naval Academy is a long-running tradition, and one that shifts locations every year. MetLife Stadium is set to host the 2026 edition, with Lincoln Financial Field hosting the following year. In addition to taking it in live, plenty of fans of both teams tune in to watch the game when it’s televised — but there’s a potential change coming in how Army-Navy is broadcast in the future.
On January 18, The Hollywood Reporter‘s Alex Welprin and Carly Thomas reported that President Trump took to social media to announce an executive order that would give the Army-Navy Game an exclusive broadcast window. Trump wrote about his concern that this game “is now at risk of being pushed aside by more College Playoff Games, and Big TV Money” and that his planned executive order would clear a four-hour broadcast window for the game.
Welprin and Thomas noted that this announcement would likely benefit Paramount, given that CBS recently extended a contract to broadcast the Army-Navy Game through 2038.
But there’s another question prompted by the president’s comments — namely, is this remotely in the jurisdiction of the executive branch? Ari Cohen, the Lead Counsel for Tech Policy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, made his stance on the issue very clear via a post on social media. “Donald Trump has as much authority to order such a thing as he has respect for the First Amendment. That is, none,” Cohen wrote.
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People on TikTok are romanticizing the sport through football-inspired house decor, warm game-day foods, fall colors and pumpkin-scented candlesCohen is not the only observer looking at this proposed executive order with some degree of skepticism. Writing in The Washington Post, Dan Diamond noted that the president’s announcement “raised immediate legal questions.” One of the experts cited in the article, Jeffrey Cole of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism’s Center for the Digital Future, told the Post that Trump “has no legal power of enforcement” in this matter.
in 2024, a bipartisan duo — Senators Dan Sullivan and Jack Reed — wrote a letter to the governing body for the College Football Playoffs asking them to preserve the second Saturday in December for the Army-Navy Game.
Still, there’s a big difference between lawmakers using their position to make an argument and a head of state using possibly nonexistent authority to settle that debate. Will Trump actually sign an executive order to this effect? Will it face legal challenges? We almost certainly have not heard the last word on the matter.
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