Alabama Crimson Tide players pose with fans after beating the Florida State Seminoles 50-36 on September 19 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
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WASHINGTON — The Protect College Sports Act, a bill aimed at curbing what its supporters call the “Wild West” era of college athletics, cleared its most significant hurdle yet Monday when the Senate passed it by a bipartisan vote of 77-22.
The bill would grant the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption to reinstate its five-year eligibility rule and transfer limits. The legislation would also codify regulation of name, image and likeness agreements that have transformed college sports in recent years by allowing athletes to get paid — some reaching millions of dollars per season.
Among the bill’s most vocal supporters are the NCAA itself, a long list of prominent schools and conferences, and President Trump, who on September 17 called for passage of the social truth bill. Negotiations led by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., lasted more than a year and found co-sponsors from both parties along the way.
Television commercials featuring Alabama great Nick Saban have peppered college football broadcasts this month, and Cruz has appeared on ESPN. College Game Day to promote the bill. “Right now, it’s the Wild West. The College Sports Protection Act is bipartisan legislation designed to bring order to chaos,” Cruz said during a mid-September press conference.
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The bill now heads to the House, which is on recess until after the November midterm elections. Its chances of success are unclear.
Over the past decade, a flood of litigation has shaken many long-standing rules governing college sports — from the tradition of amateurism to rules regarding transfers and eligibility to compete.
“We’re not going back, and whether you love or hate the old system, we shouldn’t try. The problem is that college sports entered this new era without a stable framework to govern it,” Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said on the Senate floor Monday before the vote.
Opponents of the bill – from labor groups to athletes’ organizations to the NAACP, plus all 22 senators who voted against it – say it unfairly places limits on athletes without allowing them an equal seat at the negotiating table alongside powerful institutions.
“I think the best way to frame it is ‘protect the NCAA Act,’” said Sam Ehrlich, an associate professor at Boise State University who follows college sports litigation. “This gives the NCAA significant institutional power to be able to continue to control college sports at the expense of the athletes who have successfully pushed the NCAA into some of their illegal business practices over the years.”
More than half a million athletes participate in college sports each academic year, across all divisions of the NCAA. Most of those who earn money participate in revenue-generating sports, such as football and basketball, in Division I. Only a small percentage of athletes earn six figures or more, with most being football and men’s basketball players in the four “powerhouse” conferences: the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Big 12.
Athletic department budgets have exploded over the years. But athlete compensation is far from the only important item for athletic departments.
Compensation for coaches and administrators has increased exponentially. On September 15, Cantwell released a report showing significant cost increases between 2005 and 2023: “322% in recruiting costs, nearly 300% in sports equipment, approximately 250% in medical and matchday expenses, and more than 200% in travel. Coaching salaries have increased by 370% over the same period.” Big league sports departments have increasingly added positions such as general managers and in-house video production teams that were once the exclusive domain of professional teams.
With college athletes sometimes transferring to a new school each year, the feel sport has changed.
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Still, critics of the bill say the legislation does little to curb rampant spending in these areas, even as it seeks to cap athletes’ compensation.
“That’s what frustrates me: We have a bill that’s going to protect a lot of people’s wealth and wealth, but it puts a burden on college athletes,” said Sen. Cory Booker, who played at Stanford University, in an interview with NPR last week. The New Jersey Democrat voted against the bill.
Meanwhile, sports programs that don’t generate revenue — like most women’s and Olympic sports programs — have felt the pinch. Schools have eliminated more than 100 women’s and Olympic sports teams since 2023, Cantwell’s report notes. Supporters of the bill say the legislation is needed to limit spending before schools are forced to cut even more such programs.
Some experts are skeptical of this argument. “In the strongest possible terms, there is no reason for this to happen,” said Dionne Koller, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law who recently co-chaired a bipartisan congressional commission on the state of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic movements. “There are many other ways to approach the financial issue without saying that we will necessarily have to cut Olympic sports, Paralympic sports – which are a small but growing number of university programs – and women’s sports.”
Supporters of the bill point to provisions regarding women’s and Olympic sports that require schools to maintain scholarships and roster spots in those programs. But those provisions expire after nine years for large schools and after four years for mid-sized schools, and exemptions could be granted to schools experiencing declining athletic revenue or other “demonstrable financial difficulties.”
Senator Ted Cruz, along with Senators Maria Cantwell and Shelley Moore Capito, hold a press conference with NCAA athletes and coaches about the Protect College Sports Act September 14 in Washington, DC.
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The Senate bill addresses a variety of other issues, including a 5 percent cap on compensation for agents handling athlete name, image and likeness (NIL) contracts and a provision that would allow conferences to pool their media rights. It sets out the health and safety guidelines that schools must implement. This would limit conference membership to 20 schools – a provision seen as an attempt to keep the formation of “super leagues” at bay.
A rule intended to discourage conference realignment could prove a hurdle as the bill moves through the House. Once passed, the Senate bill would require any school moving from one power conference to another to first compete as an independent for three academic years, which would likely represent a significant financial penalty. One of Florida’s senators, Rick Scott, who represents schools like Florida State University and the University of Miami, preferred to keep his conferences’ alignment options as open as possible and voted no on the bill. Similar opposition could materialize in the House, from Florida to the Carolinas to California.
In a statement, NCAA President Charlie Baker thanked the senators “for their bipartisan efforts to protect this uniquely American tradition of college sports for decades to come.”
“Now the bill moves to the U.S. House of Representatives and there is much work to be done to ensure that student-athlete benefits are codified in federal law and that future generations of young people can access these benefits and use college sports as a starting point for their careers,” he said.
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