Senate passes major bill to overhaul college sports

By Morgan Rimmer, CNN

(CNN) — The Senate on Monday passed a major bill to overhaul college athletics with a large bipartisan vote, 77-22.

The bill now moves to the House, but that chamber is on recess until after the November midterms, and it remains to be seen whether it will back the Senate bill. Notably, the Congressional Black Caucus has announced its opposition to the legislation.

The measure, known as the “Protect College Sports Act,” would set national standards for how college athletes can profit on their name, image and likeness.

Sen. Ted Cruz, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee and is the lead sponsor of the bill, has decried the “chaos” in the “wild west” of college sports contracts and argued Congress has a duty to act.

“The Protect College Sports Act is bipartisan legislation designed to bring order to the chaos, designed to put simple, common sense rules in place to that college sports remain strong and vibrant for decades to come,” he said last week at a press conference.

The bill has been endorsed by the NCAA and top conferences. However, the National College Players Association, the NAACP and the AFL-CIO oppose the bill, arguing that it protects the universities’ and the NCAA’s interests without sufficient protection for student athletes’ rights.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, the lead Democratic co-sponsor of the bill, argued the legislation will encourage colleges to spend money on education and research rather than having to shell out skyrocketing amounts for their sports teams.

“This is about reining in the bad practices that are happening in college sports today, the runaway costs that are sending people to the state legislature asking for bailout from taxpayers to pay for sports, asking people to take endowment funds that really should go to things like research or AI, and instead have to be spent because of the runaway arms race in sports spending,” she said.

President Donald Trump has called on Congress to send the measure to his desk, with the White House saying in a news release that he “believes wholeheartedly that college sports are worth fighting for — for the athletes, the schools, the fans, and America.”

Trump praised the Senate’s passage, calling it “a really big deal” in a post on Truth Social. “It will not only save college sports, it will save the colleges themselves.”

In addition to giving the NCAA the authority to regulate player compensation, it limits athletes to a one-time transfer and establishes a five-year eligibility standard. It also allows conferences to negotiate future TV deals as a group but prevents conferences from growing beyond 19 teams. The Big Ten, for example, has 18 teams.

However, the bill’s opponents argue the anti-trust exemptions risk giving too much power to the schools and the NCAA.

“What this bill does, at its core, is protect a system of exploitation,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said in a joint statement with labor organizations. “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.”

Sen. Cory Booker, who played football at Stanford University, slammed the bill, saying it is “for the large, wealthy interests that have been controlling college sports for a long time.”

The National College Players Association also warned that the package could block athletes from being able to successfully sue their universities in the case of sexual abuse, catastrophic injury or death through what it terms a “loophole” allowing the schools to “cure” a violation within 30 days.

Cruz pushed back on the argument that the bill would diminish the earning potential and bargaining power for top student athletes. “It does the exact opposite, which is it protects student athletes. It protects, in law, their right, No. 1, to participate in revenue sharing from their schools, but No. 2, to receive genuine name, image and likeness compensation.”

The Texas senator emphasized the bill looks beyond the “superstars” in college athletics “to the 99% of student athletes who will never play in the NBA, will never play in the NFL.”

“Right now, sports gives them a ticket to college, and the skills they learn — hard work, discipline, excellence, teamwork, sportsmanship — those skills set them up for success,” he continued. “And if we don’t act, we’re going to see hundreds of thousands of these positions go away. That would be devastating for student athletes.”

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This story has been updated with additional details.

CNN’s Dana O’Neil contributed to this report.