Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) announced plans Wednesday for a bipartisan college sports bill, the latest development in a multi-year effort by college sports leaders to have Congress pass legislation attempting to stabilize the industry and curb the flood of legal challenges against the NCAA and power conferences.<\/p>\n
The bill<\/a> would allow the NCAA to limit transfers and eligibility, enforce a spending cap, give conferences the ability to pool their television rights and prevent coaches from leaving their teams before the end of the season.\u00a0It also includes language to prevent a possible breakaway \u201csuper league\u201d by the Big Ten and SEC.<\/p>\n Cruz and Cantwell, the chair and ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, respectively, worked for months toward a comprehensive bill that could potentially garner enough bipartisan support to reach 60 votes in the Senate. Senators Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) quickly signed on as co-sponsors.<\/p>\n The unveiling of the Senate bill, named the Protect College Sports Act, comes the week after a potential vote on the SCORE Act, a separate college sports bill that originated in the U.S. House of Representatives, was canceled again due to political standoffs and disagreement over the amount of power ceded to the NCAA and top conferences.<\/p>\n As the power conferences debate College Football Playoff expansion<\/a> and roster budgets<\/a> \u2014 and the Big Ten and SEC saber-rattle about self-governance<\/a> \u2014\u00a0some stakeholders believe a Cruz-Cantwell bill out of the Senate is the most viable path to a college sports bill being ratified into law, at a time when the industry seems in desperate need of reform.<\/p>\n \u201cCollege sports are at a breaking point,\u201d Cruz said. \u201cThe Protect College Sports Act is a bipartisan plan to restore order.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the bill is still a long way from being ratified and will face significant steps and hurdles in the coming months, including likely resistance from the Big Ten and SEC, a polarized Congress and political climate, and this fall\u2019s midterm elections functioning as a de facto deadline.<\/p>\n Because the Senate is not in session, the bill will not be formally introduced until next week at the earliest. But it is expected to create a narrow antitrust exemption regarding athlete transfer and eligibility limits, which would shield the NCAA and conferences from legal challenges on rules established to regulate those areas. It permits athletes only one immediate transfer as undergraduates (maintaining freedom of movement for graduate students) and requires them to sit out a season of eligibility for multiple transfers, and it establishes a five-year eligibility window that prohibits professional athletes from competing at the college level. The NCAA was already expected to vote on an age-based eligibility model next month that would allow college players to compete for up to five seasons, starting the academic year after they turn 19 or graduate high school.<\/p>\n The bill also intends to impose an enforceable compensation cap regarding direct payments from schools to athletes, codifying aspects of the House v. NCAA settlement that was passed last summer and preempting the patchwork of state laws that have undermined the industry\u2019s ability to enforce its own rules. The College Sports Commission in particular has struggled to implement restrictions to that effect over the past year<\/a>, with programs actively circumventing the revenue sharing cap of roughly $20 million, often via dubious third-party name, image and likeness deals. Outside NIL agreements would still be allowed under the Cruz-Cantwell bill, but the legislation would provide more enforcement latitude to require legitimate NIL deals and close the pay-for-play loopholes used by multimedia rights partners and other associated entities.<\/p>\n The parties involved in the House settlement are also permitted to raise the cap.<\/p>\n The Protect College Sports Act steers clear of applying definitive non-employee status to college athletes, which was one of the most politically contentious aspects of the SCORE Act. This leaves open the possibility for college athletes to pursue collective bargaining at some point in the future.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best way to create the rules was to basically just assume the current status of a student-athlete,\u201d Cantwell said. \u201cAnd so we were neutral, whereas the House of Representatives took a very erroneous, wrong-headed approach, to try to define the future forever and ever and ever and ever, and we didn\u2019t think that was helpful at all.\u201d<\/p>\n The bill also offers the option for conferences to pool media rights in the future and sell them collectively as opposed to the current conference-by-conference approach, another antitrust exemption that\u2019s similar to how professional sports leagues operate under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. Pooling media rights is a point of contention in the industry but one that some view as a path to increased revenue that could lessen the financial burden of ballooning roster budgets and help fund Olympic and other non-revenue sports. At least 75 percent of Football Bowl Subdivision schools would have to agree to enact a pooling of rights.<\/p>\n That threshold is reachable without the SEC and Big Ten, but Schmitt told The Athletic that buy-in from those conferences is necessary for the financial benefits to rise across the board. Things like Olympic sports being cut <\/a>and conference realignment moves are \u201ca symptom of the problem\u201d that must be addressed by increasing revenue.<\/p>\n \u201cI think if we can get to the root problem of the revenue piece is what you\u2019re chasing with some of the conference realignment stuff, I think that\u2019s Congress\u2019 role here,\u201d Schmitt said.<\/p>\n The bill further prevents any conference that declares more than $1 billion in revenue on its 2025 tax returns from merging or consolidating with another conference \u2014 in other words, forming a \u201csuper league.\u201d The Big Ten and SEC are the only two conferences that currently meet that revenue threshold.<\/p>\n Language within the bill prevents coaches from leaving to take a job with a different program during the season, which would be similar to NFL rules and noteworthy in light of Lane Kiffin leaving Ole Miss for LSU in advance of the Rebels\u2019 College Football Playoff run last year.<\/p>\n The bill would also regulate athlete agents, including empowering the NCAA to sanction agents and cap endorsement fees at five percent, and allow for rules to limit tampering with players who are already committed and\/or enrolled with a university.<\/p>\n Under the bill, schools are required to maintain the current level of scholarships for non-revenue sports and cannot revoke scholarships based on athletic performance, injury or roster management. Division I programs must provide a certain level of medical care, including post-eligibility injury coverage.<\/p>\n The Senate Commerce Committee is expected to announce a hearing in the near future, and committee members will try to put the bill through the \u201cmark-up\u201d phase as soon as possible.<\/p>\n The Protect College Sports Act has the support of President Donald Trump and the White House. Members of the presidential committee on college sports, which was formed in the wake of the Saving College Sports presidential roundtable in March<\/a>, recently released a letter expressing support for the bipartisan effort.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is time for all interested parties to set aside past differences and coalesce around this legislation in order to get it to the President\u2019s desk without delay,\u201d read the letter<\/a>, which includes the names of many committee members. Three names notably missing were NCAA president Charlie Baker, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Commissioners of the Big Ten and SEC have expressed their views directly to [Cruz and Cantwell],\u201d the letter reads.<\/p>\n