Trump will be in attendance at the 2025 NCAA Wrestling Championships at the Wells Fargo Arena.
Credit: Abhiram Juvvadi1968 Wharton graduate and President Trump is planning to attend the 2025 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships held from March 20-22 at the Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia and co-hosted by Penn, Drexel, and PHL Sports.
This will be Trump’s first visit to Philadelphia since beginning his second term as president.
Trump is a longtime competitive and professional wrestling fan. He attended the 2023 NCAA championships held in Tulsa, Okla. where Penn State took home the team national title. In 2024, he invited the repeat-champion Nittany Lions wrestlers on his campaign stage.
For his second term cabinet, Trump tapped Linda McMahon, the World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder and a professional wrestling promoter, as his United States Secretary of Education and tasked her with shutting down the Department of Education. Two WWE Wrestlemania events were held at Trump Plaza in the 1980s.
Trump has been close friends with Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White for decades, and White made a speech at a Trump rally at the beginning of the year. In November of 2024, Trump took a break from picking his cabinet and attended the UFC championship at Madison Square Garden with a fellow Penn alum: 1997 College and Wharton graduate Elon Musk.
His attendance at the NCAA championships comes about six weeks after the NCAA banned transgender women from participating in women’s sports, in line with Trump’s executive order signed in February.
Penn is sending seven qualifiers to the championships, with the highest seed being freshman Cross Wasilewski as ninth seed in the 149-pound weight class.
Trump notably did not compete in any sports at Penn.
The NCAA championships begin on March 20 at 12 p.m. and conclude with the championship final on March 22 at 7 p.m.
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