The Senate has passed the Protect College Sports Act, establishing national rules for college athletics, which includes standards for Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals, athlete compensation, recruiting, eligibility, transferring and more.
The bill, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., was passed by a vote of 77-22 on Monday night.
President Donald Trump has urged lawmakers to pass the bill, saying “we have to get that done” prior to Congress’ summer recess.
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“I’m urging the House and the Senate to come together, bipartisan if possible and it looks like they have done, to send the bill to my desk and I will sign it,” he said the night he hosted members of Team USA from the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, who performed well earlier this year. “I think we have no choice. We have to get that done. If we don’t, we’re very foolish. Nobody knows what will happen. We’re in Never-Never Land. We’re not going to let that be happening. We’re not going to let that happen to these great people and others.”
The bill finally got pushed to the next phase earlier this month, giving the Senate the opportunity to advance the bipartisan bill. Now, the bill will go to the House of Representatives, and Trump may see it on his desk to sign into law if it goes through there.
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“I think most people acknowledge that the current landscape of college sports is a mess,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said ahead of the vote. “It needs to be addressed.”
The Protect College Sports Act would provide the collegiate governing body with greater antitrust legal protections while also establishing a uniform framework for college athletics in terms of NIL compensation, the transfer portal and more.
Cruz was the one pitching the bill since the NCAA made its decision to allow student-athletes the opportunity to benefit financially while playing college sports. However, there were no boundaries, and despite the NCAA attempting to clean up after the landmark decision in 2021, its asked lawmakers to step in for help.
“Some have asked why should Congress get in the middle of this? The answer is simple: because Congress screwed it up in the first place,” Cruz said during a news conference on Monday.
“It has been the federal antitrust laws applied in litigation after litigation after litigation that have had the effect of tearing down essentially all the rules,” he continued. “So right now it is the Wild West.”
The bill would broadly add restrictions to the transfer portal for athletes, while creating a uniform eligibility framework of five years. Recruiting and tampering guardrails would be established, where schools or agents will have to follow specified timeframes when they’re allowed to contact or recruit an athlete. Also, a federal standard for NIL rules and a revenue-sharing cap would be set if the bill were to be signed into law.
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There are opponents of the bill, however, including Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. who said it would take away bargaining power from the athletes, while creating exemptions from antitrust law for schools.
“The ‘chaos’ is that (mostly Black) athletes now have bargaining power and White coaches and sports industry execs hate it,” Murphy said on X earlier this month.
Finally, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., alongside Sens. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., filed an amendment to the bill in August aimed at preventing the bill from overriding state laws that bar biological men from competing in women’s sports. They wanted to close, what they viewed as, a loophole to undo laws in their states designed to keep biological males out of women’s sports.
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Hawley said earlier this month he voted to advance the legislation after saying his concern was addressed and fixed within the bill to his satisfaction.
The House is under recess until after the midterm elections, meaning a potential vote on the bill to send it to Trump’s desk would have to wait.
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