College Sports Overhaul Bill Clears Key Senate Hurdle
A landmark bill that would fundamentally reshape college athletics cleared a pivotal Senate committee vote on Thursday, advancing to the full Senate floor for the first time in six years of congressional lobbying by college sports stakeholders. The bipartisan Protect College Sports Act passed the Senate Commerce Committee by a 19-9 vote, setting the stage for what could be the most significant federal intervention in collegiate athletics in history.
A Historic Step Forward
The legislation, co-sponsored by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA), along with Sens. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) and Chris Coons (D-DE), aims to codify athlete revenue-sharing and Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rights, establish limits on player compensation and transfers, and grant the NCAA and conferences antitrust protections to enforce these rules. According to AP News, the bill also includes provisions to prevent a “power conference super league” by blocking any FBS conference from merging, while allowing conferences to pool media rights.
“The greatest risk facing college athletics today is not any single controversy, court decision, or headline. The greatest threat to college sports is inaction,” Cruz said in opening remarks at the hearing.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune voted in favor of the bill in committee and now holds the authority to bring it to the Senate floor for a full vote.
The SEC and Big Ten Push Back
Despite broad support from more than 20 athletic conferences, 225 universities, the NFL, MLB, the NBA Players Association, and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, the two most powerful conferences in college sports remain opposed. The Southeastern Conference (SEC) and Big Ten Conference issued a joint statement Thursday morning stating that “revisions are needed to secure our support for the bill.”
“What we did today was say we’re not going to let the most powerful, richest conferences dictate to the rest of America what’s going to happen to 500,000 athletes,” Cantwell said after the vote, as reported by Front Office Sports.
Senators from states with prominent SEC and Big Ten programs voted against the bill, including Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). Peters explained his opposition by saying, “We still are trying to get some changes that the Big Ten would like to see.”
The Section 114 Controversy
The most contentious provision in the 47-page bill is Section 114, which targets a lucrative loophole that schools have been using to pay athletes beyond the revenue-share cap established by the House v. NCAA settlement. The cap is currently set at $20.5 million per school, moving to $21.3 million next year.
According to a deep-dive analysis by Yahoo Sports, Section 114 prevents athlete NIL deals struck with “associated entities” — such as multimedia rights partners, corporate sponsors, and apparel brands — from circumventing the revenue-share cap. Schools have been using these affiliated entities to funnel millions of dollars to athletes above the cap, with SEC and Big Ten schools accounting for more than 75% of the $500 million in above-the-cap NIL deals submitted to the College Sports Commission.
Mit Winter, a sports law attorney, told Yahoo Sports that the Protect College Sports Act is “being outed as mostly an attempt to rein in the Big Ten and SEC, cloaked in the veil of ‘saving’ college sports.”
Nineteen athletes representing seven sports across 14 Division I conferences submitted a letter to lawmakers arguing that Section 114 “would have a severe negative impact and greatly inhibit student-athlete compensation in general,” wrote Samuel Edwards, a Michigan State football player and athlete representative.
The Road Ahead
Clearing the committee is just the first step. The bill faces significant hurdles before becoming law. It needs 60 votes to overcome a potential filibuster in the 53-47 Republican-controlled Senate. The legislation must also clear the House, where Republican leadership had been working on its own bill — the SCORE Act — before the Congressional Black Caucus announced unanimous opposition.
President Donald Trump has publicly endorsed the Protect College Sports Act, adding White House support to the push for reform. However, with the November midterm elections approaching and a packed legislative calendar, the window for passage is narrowing.
“No one got everything they wanted,” Cruz acknowledged. “But we did create a framework that stabilizes college athletics.”
As the Sports Business Journal noted, this marks the first college sports bill to reach this point in the Senate. Whether it can overcome opposition from the wealthiest conferences and navigate a divided Congress remains the defining question for the future of college athletics.