The U.S. Senate passed a bill Monday to regulate college sports that secured the support of the coach of the University of Connecticut’s men’s basketball team but sparked opposition from both of Connecticut’s U.S. senators.
The so-called “Protect College Sports Act” passed Monday night by a comfortable margin and with support from members of both parties. That looked likely after the bill easily cleared multiple procedural votes in recent weeks. Its fate and timing in the House remains unclear.
But the bipartisan bill garnered no votes from Connecticut’s Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, who thought the bill fell short and didn’t adequately prioritize student athletes.
Even so, Blumenthal clinched a vote on his amendment to raise the number of teams that can join Power Four conferences — the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten Conference, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big 12 Conference — from 19 to 20 members. It could make it easier for schools like UConn to join one of those conferences. The amendment, cosponsored with Republican Sen. Ashley Moody of Florida, easily passed by a voice vote.
But even with his amendment, meant as a boost for sports programs at Connecticut universities, Blumenthal couldn’t support the overarching bill.
“After all the years I’ve spent working on this issue, I could never for one minute trust the NCAA to police itself,” Blumenthal said in a statement after the vote. “This bill forces the athletes themselves to enforce its safeguards against the NCAA and conferences that have the power to destroy their athletic careers.”
“Despite my bipartisan amendment to increase conference access, the legislation still does not adequately promote vigorous competition among teams and conferences and instead preserves the exclusive club of the current Power Four membership to the detriment of smaller universities, many in Connecticut,” he continued.
The Protect College Sports Act, authored by U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has been a years-long 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.
“We saw an amazing coalition come together that is fighting for the hundreds of thousands of college athletes all across this country, for universities all across this nation, and for the millions of fans who love college sports and want to preserve it and protect it,” Cruz said in a video moments after its passage. He has said the bill was “designed to bring order to the chaos.”
But the bill faced resistance among labor groups like the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus, and from student athletes across the country.
A vocal critic of the bill, Murphy argued that the legislation “protects a system of exploitation” and that students would be better protected through the right to organize and collectively bargain. He has defined it as a civil rights issue that significantly affects Black student athletes.
“In the end, this bill, if it passes and becomes law, is actually going to be a long-term threat to college athletics,” Murphy said from the Senate floor before the bill’s passage. “Students are not dumb. They’re not going to sit in college sports with a cap on their earnings.”
“That will be the primary impact of this artificial cap on compensation,” Murphy added, “this massive antitrust exemption for colleges, I think it may well, in the end, be the unwinding of college sports.”
Hundreds of universities backed the bill, though some notable colleges oppose it, such as the University of Alabama and Auburn University. Earlier this month, UConn was one of the schools that wanted Congress to act on 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 earlier this month when the Senate first took it up. “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.”
Dan Hurley, the coach of the UConn men’s basketball team, threw his support behind the legislation in the days leading up to the final vote, according to The Hartford Courant. He said a measure that establishes national standards is needed “even if it’s not perfect.”
“I heard for so many years that the players needed to get paid, the players needed the ability to transfer, they should be able to transfer,” Hurley said last week, according to the Courant. “The bill allows for both of those things to happen.”
Murphy has said he would like to see Congress take another stab at making some reforms to college sports that give 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.”
Murphy and Blumenthal, who have both been active on the issue for years and introduced their own bills to address college sports and athlete rights, sought votes on additional amendments that didn’t get taken up Monday night.
Blumenthal wanted votes on several other provisions, including an enforcement mechanism for state attorneys general in the case of violations and a prohibition on private equity funds and foreign government entities as part of deals with the NCAA, schools and conferences. Murphy, meanwhile, proposed amendments to allow for the unionization of college athletes and another to institute an annual salary cap for coaches at $5 million.
The Protect College Sports Act is one of the final pieces of legislation the Senate will act on before the November midterm elections. But the bill will be in limbo as it moves to the House, which is currently in recess through the elections. Cruz wants GOP leaders to call the House back into session early to pass it before then.
But that is highly unlikely, with members wanting to stay home and campaign. It is also unclear if the legislation has enough support in the House to pass.
President Donald Trump supports the bill and will sign it into law if it comes to his desk. But lawmakers have a short window when they return from the lame duck session post-election.
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.
