A pair of U.S. Senators, one Democrat and one Republican, have joined together to propose sweeping reforms to college sports.
Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell and Texas Republican Ted Cruz have worked together to hammer out a plan to grant the NCAA the antitrust exemption it has been seeking to more closely regulate college athlete transfers, eligibility, and compensation.
The pair’s “Protect College Sports Act” would “preclude the creation of a so-called ‘super league’; create an agent registry limiting fees to 5%; permit the pooling of media rights; and bar coaches from leaving their team before the season ends,” according to Yahoo Sports.
In a statement, Sen. Cruz said, “This bipartisan bill is designed to save the part of college sports that fans actually care about.”
Cantwell said the bill would enact needed protections for student athletes seeking to capitalize on their image and likeness compensation (NIL) by creating national rules that would supersede state laws. She also said the bill would protect Olympic and women’s sports and provide athletes with guaranteed medical care and scholarships.
She also celebrated the bipartisan nature of her work with Cruz and insisted that America is “hungry for any bipartisan legislation.”
Cruz also celebrated the bipartisanship, saying, “Today is a time of deep partisan division, and yet sports are one of the very few things in life that brings us together, that bring communities together, where people of different parties, of different races, of different religions, side by side, embrace and cheer on their teams, and there’s a powerful unifying force to sports.”
One measure in the bill would prevent students from jumping from school to school multiple times per season. A second transfer, for instance, would trigger a provision requiring the athlete to sit out a season before returning to the field. Another provision would put limits on third-party NIL deals. While another would establish a five-year eligibility limit and limit pro athletes’ returns to college in certain situations.
Another key part of the proposed bill would cap college athlete salaries and would stop schools from redirecting corporate donations to student athletes to get around the cap. Still, the bill also allows for the cap to be raised past the current $21.3 million each college now has to devote to athlete compensation.
“The cap can float, Sen. Cantwell said. “In case the parties go back to the table (to raise the cap) — there’s dialogue about this — we want athletes to know that there is a mechanism of getting a higher percentage of the revenue share.”
“The approach of this bill is to give highly targeted legal protections to the enforcement of the rules that are specified in the federal statute,” Cruz explained. “So, if it’s fake NIL, if it is a booster just handing an athlete a bag of cash under the table, that is breaking the rules.”
The bill also prevents the formation of what has been called a “super league.” The bill caps the earnings of any college sports league at $1 billion annually. Currently, only the SEC and the Big Ten meet that earnings threshold. The bill would prevent these two from joining a larger league to avoid swamping the smaller leagues.
Another change would be to allow colleges to voluntarily pool their media rights contracts in order to earn more from their broadcast rights. The hope is that schools will return to local broadcasting.
“Obviously, we’re trying to make sure that nobody runs away with the eyeballs or a certain amount of revenue and hijacks the rest of the system, leaving it short-changed,” Cantwell insisted.
The bill has just been proposed by Cruz and Cantwell. Now, the pair is lobbying their fellow Senators to sign on to the act so it can be passed and sent to the House.
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