Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) introduced the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan legislative package designed to establish national standards for college athletics, regulate payments to players, and address issues stemming from the transfer portal and name, image, and likeness (NIL) endorsement opportunities. Cruz, the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Cantwell, the committee’s ranking member, crafted the legislation as a stability measure to address what they described as chaos in the collegiate sports system.
Bipartisan Senate Bill Aims to Overhaul College Sports
The bill combines provisions from previous legislative proposals known as SCORE and SAFE. According to its authors, the legislation is intended to create enforceable national rules covering transfers, eligibility, tampering, inducements, and revenue sharing, while providing targeted antitrust protection for organizations such as the NCAA and the College Sports Commission.
Rules for Transfers, Eligibility, and Coaches
Under the proposed legislation, student-athletes would be limited to one unrestricted transfer over the course of their college careers. The bill also looks to align with NCAA plans regarding a five-year eligibility period. Additionally, the measure seeks to restrict coaching movement during the season by creating a provision referred to as the Lane Kiffin Rule.
Supporters of the legislation argue that congressional intervention is necessary to halt an arms race in college sports that threatens smaller, nonrevenue-generating programs, particularly women’s sports and Olympic pipeline events. During a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing, former University of Alabama coach Nick Saban endorsed the effort, stating, Congress does not need to micromanage college athletics. We want an education-based model that protects athletes.
Saban added, It isn’t perfect, and many adjustments need to be made. But this is a serious effort to bring order to a system that badly needs fixing.
Revenues, Associated Entities, and Conference Support
Negotiations surrounding the bill involved intense discussions regarding revenue-sharing caps and associated entities. The final deal raised the revenue-share cap to $48.8 million, which includes $21.3 million from the House settlement, a $22.5 million retention pool, and $5 million designated for non-revenue sports. An associated entities provision was included to prevent schools from funneling money to athletes through corporate sponsors and multimedia rights partners in order to bypass the revenue-share cap.
The legislation also proposes reworking the Sports Broadcasting Act to allow conferences to pool their television rights, a change proponents suggest could add billions of dollars to the ecosystem, with a percentage of any increase required to support women’s and Olympic sports.
Support, Resistance, and Path Forward
The coalition supporting the legislation includes dozens of athletic conferences, hundreds of colleges and universities, the NCAA, professional sports leagues including the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL, player associations for the NFL and NBA, and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Lawmakers and university officials, including former university president E. Gordon Gee, have emphasized the financial pressures facing institutions, with Gee noting, We have a revenue problem, either we grow the pie, or we destroy everything that we’re about.
Despite broad backing, the bill has faced hurdles and shifting stances from major conferences. While the Big Ten and SEC initially expressed hesitation and argued the bill did not adequately preempt state laws, both conferences later endorsed the legislation following a breakthrough in negotiations over revenue-share caps and associated entities. Senators backing the measure, including Eric Schmitt, have expressed optimism that the bill can secure the 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster in the Senate before moving to the House.
