(NewsNation) — President Joe Biden met with former college football players and advocates this week at the White House to discuss the pressing issues involving the rights and safety of college athletes.

A statement from the White House said Biden attended the meeting to “hear about why college football players – and all student-athletes – deserve consistent safety standards, a voice, and to benefit from the revenue they produce.”

NewsNation’s chief Washington correspondent, Blake Burman, questioned if Biden was getting ready to jump into the hot-button debate around the compensation for college athletes.

The meeting at the White House comes after a series of congressional hearings last month that focused on the future of college sports now that student-athletes can be compensated for their name, image and likeness (NIL).

In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) attempt to block student-athletes’ compensation.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh warned that the “NCAA’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America.”

At one of the recent Senate hearings, NCAA President Charlie Baker told federal lawmakers that for college sports to modernize, the athletes must remain students.

Baker said athlete representatives from all three NCAA divisions have stated they do not want to be employees of their schools.

He also warned that Division II and III schools might abandon their athletic programs without congressional action.

“If this committee and the Commerce Committee doesn’t act, in about a year, this thing is going to be an absolute mess,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “And you’re going to destroy college athletics as we know it.”

Meanwhile, new legal threats to the collegiate model have emerged. An antitrust case could force schools and conferences that compete at the highest levels of the NCAA into professional sports-style revenue sharing of billions in media rights dollars with football and basketball players.

“You may regret asking Congress to intervene here,” said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. “All of a sudden, you’re going to be micromanaged.”

The meeting with Biden displayed the administration’s support for players in the battle over student-athlete compensation.

College football analyst Rodney Gilmore, who was at that meeting with the president, joined “The Hill on NewsNation” to discuss the issue, saying it was “really an amazing and surreal day … to have the White House staff and the president weigh in and be concerned about the economic rights and the health and safety of college athletes.”

Gilmore highlighted the vast revenue generated by college sports and emphasized the NCAA’s historical violation of antitrust laws.

“I think the President made it very clear that he’s concerned about the rights of players,” Gilmore said. “The fact that the players do not have a voice, they don’t have representation. They don’t have a seat at the table when it comes to the NCAA.”

While discussions pointed toward the need for players to have representation, it remained unclear what form that representation might take.

“We had a discussion about the fact that the players need to have a voice, they need to have a seat at the table,” he said. “What form that takes how that comes about, is unclear.”

Gilmore underscored the issue of players being restricted from capitalizing on their name and image rights while other Americans can pursue these opportunities.

“It goes to a person’s right to profit from their name, image and likeness,” he said. “And all of us have that right. Every student has that right. But now we hear the narrative before Congress that we need to limit the rights of football players, basketball players and college athletes while every other American gets to, you know, pursue that right. That seems to be making second-class citizens out of these athletes.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.