The U.S. Senate is zeroing in on a bipartisan bill that would set national standards for college sports. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., has been leading the charge against the legislation within Congress, arguing it would prioritize coaches and executives over student athletes and give them more latitude in an industry worth billions of dollars.
But even as he and other critics rallied against it this week, the legislation got a major boost on Tuesday night. The Senate advanced the bill in its first procedural vote with a comfortable margin. Both of Connecticut’s U.S. senators voted against it.
The bill is one of the rare pieces of bipartisan legislation seeking to break through in this Congress, just weeks out from the midterm elections. Supporters argue it’ll address the “chaos” within college athletics and set standards ranging from player transfers to compensation. But Murphy sees it vastly differently — “a fake crisis” that puts the burden more on coaches to keep valuable players. To him, the TV deals are getting bigger and fan interest in college sports is growing.
“What this bill does, at its core, is protect a system of exploitation,” Murphy said in a statement after Tuesday’s vote. “This bill protects the billions of dollars that coaches and executives are making by suppressing compensation for some of the most highly valued athletes in the world. Let’s be clear: this bill is about solving one ‘problem’ — a fake problem — the problem of athlete empowerment.”
The Protect College Sports Act, authored by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has been a yearslong effort and underwent negotiations for months. It eventually garnered support from NCAA leadership, professional sports leagues, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees, and a number of college coaches and athletic directors.
The bill would change unlimited transfers of students to one penalty-free transfer — with exceptions if sexual assault or misconduct occurred, a program shuts down or a head coach leaves. It would set five years of eligibility for players with an age cap of 24 years old and provide an antitrust exemption to the NCAA and conferences to enforce standards.
It also sets standards around revenue sharing regarding name, image or likeness deals known as NIL. Under the bill, students must report compensation from NIL agreements that exceed $600. It also caps agent fees to 5% regarding such deals.
Cantwell, the Washington Democrat, said the focus needs to also be on the majority of student athletes who don’t get the same attention and revenue deals as the big names. A group of students who play sports at various colleges rallied behind the bill with the two authors at an outdoor rally in D.C. on Monday, saying they want to help protect their scholarships and their sports. They were also joined by coaches and Craig Robinson, the executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
“Right now, it’s the ‘wild west.’ It’s bipartisan legislation, designed to bring order to the chaos,” Cruz said at an outdoor rally for the bill in Washington, adding that it adds “simple common sense rules in place so college sports remain strong and vibrant for decades to come.”
But as supporters of the bill try to push it through at least the Senate in the next week or so, it’s facing resistance among labor groups like the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus, and other student athletes across the country.
Meghann Burke, executive director of the National Women’s Soccer League Players Association and a member of the AFL-CIO Sports Council, argued athletes “should not have to rely on the goodwill of institutions that control the conditions under which they train and compete.”
Murphy echoed those sentiments that students who compete would be better protected and represented through the right to organize and collectively bargain.
The Connecticut senator has been one of the most outspoken critics in Congress, and he’s gotten in a few heated exchanges on social media as he’s waded into the issue.
As he spoke about the bill on a Monday call featuring athletes and labor groups that also opposed the legislation, Murphy defined it as a civil rights issue that significantly affects Black student athletes.
“I know that it is sometimes uncomfortable for us to talk in these terms, but let’s not mince words,” Murphy said. “Many of the most valuable athletes, those who command in a real market the highest salaries, are Black, and almost all of the people who are protecting the billions that are being made by the industry are white. And so this is an effort to protect a system of exploitation.”
There’s a provision in the college sports bill that would create a federal grant program geared toward historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. But Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, called it “an attempt to buy off members of the Congressional Black Caucus.” The 62-member caucus came out against the bill in August.
“Any college sports legislation must protect the whole ecosystem, including student athletes, universities, conferences, and HBCUS, by guaranteeing athletes have a real voice, fair economic rights, long-term health and educational security,” Johnson said Monday on the same call as Murphy. Johnson similarly called for collective bargaining, protecting the ability to complete their education if a student has a sports-related injury that prevents them from playing, and lifetime paid healthcare if an athlete faces a “life-altering injury.”
Murphy said he would like to see Congress take another stab at making some reforms to college sports that gives students a seat at the table and “would not preserve this system of exploitation that has and will continue to damage the safety and the health of our athletes all across the country.”
Connecticut’s other Democratic senator is also wary of the bill. In an August op-ed in The Hartford Courant, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said the legislation “trusts the NCAA to police itself and further entrenches the current elite conferences hurting schools like UConn. I can’t support the bill until it’s made better.”
He still feels that way as the Senate inches toward taking it up. Blumenthal, who said he worked for months to try to get changes or amendments, said there are “very significant defects in the bill,” including a lack of enforcement.
Prior to the vote, Blumenthal said he was leaning toward opposing the bill. He ultimately voted against it in on Tuesday evening, as did Murphy.
“I think it reinforces the monopoly power of the current structure without really affording sufficient protection to the athletes,” Blumenthal said in an interview on his way to votes on Tuesday.
A couple hundred universities support the bill, though some notable colleges oppose it including the University of Alabama and Auburn University. In a statement provided ahead of Tuesday’s procedural vote, the University of Connecticut said it wants to see Congress pursue the issue swiftly.
“Given the current landscape in college sports, UConn believes it is critical that federal legislation be adopted as soon as possible,” UConn university spokesperson Stephanie Reitz said in a statement. “The university continues to advocate for legislation that provides a fair and uniform national framework that allows UConn and our student athletes to be successful now and in the future.”
Cruz said he wants to see big margins in a Senate vote, like they did in committee. The bill needs 60 votes to clear a filibuster in various procedural votes before it moves to final passage. Clearing the 60-vote threshold requires votes from both parties.
The extent of Democratic support was unclear heading into Tuesday’s votes, but more than two dozen Democratic senators backed the legislation. Murphy had also noted earlier in the day that some skepticism remains within GOP ranks, with the possibility of Republican lawmakers wanting to attach “anti-transgender” amendments to it.
The timeline of the bill was uncertain. Cruz had said the Senate would take it up either this week or next week depending on the timing of a cryptocurrency bill. Because the latter failed in the Senate on Tuesday, lawmakers quickly moved to take up the Protect College Sports Act soon after with its first procedural vote. The Senate will look to wrap up its work on the issue before it heads out of town at the end of the month.
Still, Congress has a very short window in session before another lengthy recess. The Senate is in for the next few weeks, but the House leaves town at the end of the week through the midterm elections. Lawmakers will have another few weeks to try again post-election in a lame duck session before the end of the year and the clock restarts.
Even if it passes the Senate, the bill’s fate in the House is unknown. President Donald Trump supports the legislation and would sign it into law if it makes it to his desk.
The Connecticut Mirror/Connecticut Public Radio federal policy reporter position is made possible, in part, by funding from the Robert and Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation.
This story was originally published by the Connecticut Mirror.
