The Protect College 'Administrators' Act, Part Next

Technically, the legislation aimed at providing stability to college sports is halfway to becoming law. In practical terms, however, it may be much further from the finish line. The Protect College Sports Act passed the Senate last week by a 77-22 margin, which nearly qualifies as a landslide in today’s polarized Congress. Now it must pass the House of Representatives, no small feat among the larger, more diverse legislative body. 

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, said he thinks the House will reconvene in the coming days to take up and pass the legislation, though Speaker/weasel Mike Johnson, the Republican from Louisiana, sent representatives home early last month until after the November mid-term elections and said himself that reconvening is unlikely. 

One Democrat House staff member told Yahoo Sports college snoop Ross Dellenger, “That bill is dead.” Another told him, “We have no intention to return to take up this bill before the mid-term elections.” The contentiousness appears to be both procedural and personal, with a heaping helping of disapproval of the bill itself. The House doesn’t routinely rubber-stamp legislation passed by the Senate, and one Congressional expert told Dellenger that there are plenty of House members cheesed off at Cruz for holding up House-passed legislation in the Senate. Some are also peeved that several proposals from a similar, House-authored bill called the SCORE Act that couldn’t garner enough support for a floor vote aren’t included in the PCSA. 

If House members do indeed take up the Senate’s bill, they could and likely would insert changes and amendments that the Senate would have to sign off on before final approval. Meanwhile, Democrats hold out hope of taking control of the House in November, so why would they reconvene under the current slim Republican majority? Also, there’s the optics of reps assembling to take up college sports legislation while ignoring issues such as the war with Iran, tariffs, inflation, foreign policy and any number of more pressing matters. And then there’s the bill itself. 

The PCSA purports to create Federal, uniform guardrails and guidance amid the shifting landscape of athlete payment and movement. Instead, it’s likely to give back, or curtail, many of the benefits and freedoms athletes won in numerous court cases over the past couple decades and return control to the suits and administrators. The biggest gift is granting the NCAA an antitrust exemption, a shield against action or lawsuits brought on behalf of athletes or schools. Because yes, by all means we should greenlight the restaurateur with a track record of health code violations and salmonella outbreaks to open another eatery. 

The NCAA fought tooth-and-nail for years to uphold amateurism as its foundation, while schools and conferences and coaches made tens of millions of dollars, and conference realignment caused its own brand of upheaval. Courts regularly struck down NCAA limits and opened the door for athletes to earn money and to transfer more freely in search of both money and playing time. The PCSA, as currently worded, would create a strictly regulated revenue-share salary cap; would limit athlete transfer policy (one transfer without penalty); create a five-year eligibility limit for athletes; create an agent registry with a five-percent maximum fee; limit conference expansion; create a path for Football Bowl Subdivision conferences to pool media rights; prohibit coaches who leave before a season ends from performing duties at their new school (the so-called Lane Kiffin Rule). 

Proponents of the bill say these measures will replace the patchwork of state legislation and bring stability to a sporting landscape that’s become chaotic, as well as expensive. Critics point to the questionable wisdom of Federal oversight of college sports – for example, see Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt’s gaffealicious inability to differentiate between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, while attempting to grill former prosecutor Jack Smith. Critics also take issue with the potential limitation of athletes’ freedom and earning potential, and rewarding the NCAA with renewed powers after decades of feckless and shortsighted management. 

Though there’s bipartisan support of the bill (50 Republicans and 27 Democrats approved) there’s also bipartisan opposition. The 58-member Congressional Black Caucus, a group of Democrats, opposed the SCORE Act, as did a sizeable number of the 30-member, conservative GOP Freedom Caucus – albeit for different reasons. The CBC has already come out publicly against the current legislation. As Dellenger pointed out, both the Congressional Black Caucus and Freedom Caucus have members on the powerful House Rules Committee, which must approve any legislation for it to reach the floor for a full vote. If the bill doesn’t pass before the end of the calendar year, it goes back to square one and must be re-submitted and re-approved by both chambers. 

Even if the PCSA passes and President Trump signs it into law, which he’s said he’ll do, it won’t magically and immediately transform college sports. Expect any number of legal challenges related to salary caps, earning caps, transfer limits, agent fee limits, Title IX considerations and pre-emption of state laws on eligibility and NIL payments to athletes over Tenth Amendment concerns, which states that the Federal government only has the powers granted to it by the U.S. Constitution and that the states have power over everything else; the Framers were notably silent on college athletics.

Protection Racket: NCAA Edition

Amid the overall positive vibes of the World Cup, professional championships in hoops and hockey, the U.S. Open and the specter of a Major League Baseball lockout, you might have missed the latest machinations in the ongoing college athletics saga loosely titled, “Won’t Somebody Please Help Us.” 

Widespread disruption and athlete pay and movement have twisted college sports overseers into crullers who have spent the past several years lobbying for Federal government intervention to provide guidelines and limits. Last week, something called the Protect College Sports Act advanced out of a Senate committee and could end up on the Senate floor for a full vote. The bill would provide antitrust protections to the NCAA and major conferences and would help regulate college sports. 

Among its major provisions are limits on transfers and eligibility and a spending cap. It would give conferences the option to pool their television rights and would force schools to commit to preserve their women’s and Olympic sports programs. It would create national standards in areas such as Name, Image and Likeness payments that supersede state measures. 

The original bill was authored by Texas Republican Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington. It was amended over the past year and passed the Senate Commerce Committee 19-9 with bipartisan support (brief aside: Pity that bipartisan agreement doesn’t extend to presidential actions and behavior). After the vote, Cantwell blasted the Big Ten and Southeastern conferences, which both oppose the legislation, saying that they’re attempting to “intimidate” members and treating school presidents and athletic directors like puppets. “What we did today is say we’re not going to let the most powerful and richest conferences dictate to the rest of America what’s going to happen to 500,000 athletes,” Cantwell said in the hearing room last Thursday. “They need our help, they asked for it and today, we are giving it.” Cruz said after the committee vote: “I believe this bill is going to pass,” according to Yahoo Sports college football snoop Ross Dellenger. 

The Big Ten and SEC, the two wealthiest conferences by a wide margin thanks to TV contract and media rights money, oppose the legislation for several reasons. They are against the idea of potentially pooling FBS conference media rights and possibly limiting NIL payments to athletes by third parties; they’re also concerned that outside influences, namely mega-dollar private equity groups, could poach high-profile programs and create a super league. In short, the Big Ten and SEC prefer to conduct their own affairs. They aren’t keen on welcoming the ACC or Big 12 into any sort of collective bargaining of TV rights and are mistrustful of advocates who claim that pooling rights would somehow unlock even more money for the collective kitty. 

The two leagues released a joint statement that said Cantwell’s remarks do not “accurately reflect the process.” Meanwhile, Cantwell said that the two leagues’ concerns are “irrational.” The Protect College Sports Act is the second piece of legislation to work its way through Congress. Last year, the SCORE Act came through a House of Representatives committee, backed by the White House and many college sports leaders. It contained several similar provisions to the PCSA, including broader antitrust protection for the NCAA and language that prohibited athletes from being classified as employees. The bill never made it to the House floor for a vote. No Democrat supported it, plenty of Republicans were skeptical, and it was DOA in the Senate, where it needed 60 votes to pass in a chamber where the GOP holds a slim, three-seat advantage. 

But Cruz and Cantwell, among others, think this bill stands a decent chance at passage because of the committee’s bipartisan support and because Senate majority leader John Thune, who voted for the bill in committee, intends to bring it to the floor, Cruz said to Dellenger. Even if it passes the Senate, it would still need to pass the House – an iffy proposition – before it crosses the President’s desk. 

Congressional attention to college athletics, I suspect, is a case of low-hanging fruit that plays well to constituents. Congress has all but abandoned meaningful governance in many areas related to budgeting and oversight and citizens’ well-being. The President and his greasy minions treat the Constitution like a Denny’s menu and the rule of law as a suggestion list. The current majority party enables the Big Orange Guy because they’re terrified of him, while the opposition party has trouble articulating a compelling case for lunch. 

College sports, meanwhile, provides a connection for many regardless of political persuasion, fueled in part by a gauzy nostalgia for an era that was never as fair or innocent as they like to believe, along with the well-worn trope of concern for the welfare of the youngsters. All those inconvenient court rulings in recent years kneecapped the NCAA’s old model and paved the way for labor – uhhh, excuse me, student-athletes – to earn a cut of the billions that they generated and give them greater freedom of movement. Conference realignment mirrors corporate consolidation, and all the upheaval gives a lot of people the shakes. Hence, the NCAA and college leaders’ desire for stability and guidelines, and tough talk and grand gestures from legislators, who wouldn’t give the issues a second look if not for the vast sums of money involved. 

The coming weeks will be interesting, as the bill’s advocates try to whip up support, while the Big Ten and SEC and their allies will attempt to sow doubt in hopes of scuttling the legislation. It’s a peculiar dance, seeing as how representatives from bright red areas and states who often chafe at the idea of government intervention and regulation are being asked to sign on for national standards in this one particular area, while those from bluer locales might find themselves inclined to back away from collective control and to permit conferences and free markets to find their own levels, imperfect as that may be. Now, if we could just get Cruz and Cantwell to take an interest in the War Powers Act or the Emoluments Clause.