The United States Senate left Washington, D.C., last week for a prolonged recess, and although lawmakers raced to get as much business finished as possible, Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) Protect College Sports Act was left on the table.
The bill, backed by the Southeastern Conference and Big Ten, would place sweeping regulations on college sports to establish a federal framework governing athlete compensation, name, image and likeness rights and eligibility. It finally advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee in June but failed to reach the Senate floor last week, endangering its chances of becoming law this year.
Last week, Sen. Cruz and other lawmakers, along with White House officials, negotiated a package of concessions with Big Ten and SEC leaders, who until then had refused to back the bill.
“Without this Bill, millions of young Athletes will be hurt, programs will be canceled, Women’s and Olympic Sports will go away, the fans will be robbed, and Universities will go broke,” Trump said on social media last week, urging the Senate to pass it before leaving.
The bill would establish a federal framework for the NCAA’s 2021 rules allowing college athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, while also setting guidelines for revenue sharing—a key sticking point that had previously kept the conferences from supporting the legislation.
One provision would allow “associated entities,” including booster-funded “collectives,” to pay athletes through endorsement deals outside a school’s salary cap. According to the College Sports Commission, such deals have already directed more than $355 million to athletes as of July. The conferences are pushing for these payments to count toward a school’s compensation cap.
Other groups have also pushed back on the bill, including the Congressional Black Caucus. It argues these sweeping new legal protections favor “powerful institutions” while “failing to adequately protect the athletes whose talent fuels this multibillion-dollar industry.”
“It falls short of providing Black athletes with the rights, representation, economic opportunities and meaningful safeguards they deserve, while also failing to adequately recognize the interests of Black coaches, Black agents, HBCUs and other professionals whose futures will be shaped by this legislation,” the caucus said in a statement last week.
But Sen. Cruz warns that failing to act would further entrench the disparities already emerging in college sports.
“If we do nothing, the current trajectory will concentrate more power in fewer hands and will widen the gap between the richest programs and everyone else,” he said during a Senate hearing last week.
