The Army-Navy Game is a staple of the college football calendar, a standalone event at the end of the regular season in which two of the sport’s biggest rivals face off against one another in a nationally televised matchup.
If one particularly powerful person has their way, it will remain that way.
In a post on Truth Social, a social media app he owns, President Donald Trump said that he plans to sign an executive order that would grant the Army-Navy Game an exclusive four-hour television window that would prevent any other “commercial postseason games” to be played alongside it.
Trump’s post came as proposals for an expanded College Football Playoff field have been discussed, some of which would infringe on what has become the Army-Navy game’s customary date on the second Saturday of December. One such plan for a 24-team playoff would push Army vs. Navy up one week, to the first Saturday in December (which for years has been conference championship weekend).
Trump has been a regular visitor to the Army-Navy Game, having attended it six times as either the president or president-elect, including each of the past two years. At his first trip to the game, as president-elect in 2016, he drew attention for saying in an interview with CBS that ‘I don’t know if it’s necessarily the best football’ when talking about the rivalry.
The American Conference, of which Navy and Army are both football members, released a statement on Sunday, Jan. 18 thanking Trump for ‘protecting’ the game.
‘This game is a natural treasure, where the true commitment of our future leaders is on display,’ American commissioner Tim Pernetti said in the statement. ‘As college athletics continues to modernize in an uncharted landscape, the support of our leaders in Washington is crucial.’
It’s unclear what sort of legal standing such a measure would have, if the 79-year-old Trump follows through on his promise.
Since being inaugurated for his second term in Jan. 2025, Trump has issued executive orders far more liberally than his predecessors in the first years of their terms. Trump signed 225 executive orders last year, significantly more than the 77 Joe Biden signed in 2021, the 55 Trump signed in 2017 and the 40 Barack Obama signed in 2009.