Jon Wilner
A landmark congressional bill that would reshape college sports spent weeks navigating a narrow path through the U.S. Senate. Then Friday came and went, and the odds of eventual passage became much longer.
The sprawling Protect College Sports Act (PCSA), which aims to regulate athlete compensation, coaching changes, conference expansion, Olympic sports and much more, did not receive a floor vote before the Senate broke for its August recess this weekend.
As a result, the bipartisan legislation sponsored by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and others has been pushed to the post-Labor Day legislative window. Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) has guaranteed a cloture vote, an essential step on the path to a full floor vote, between Sept. 15-23.
“Time may have run out to protect college sports in August but there is plenty of time in September,” Cantwell said in a statement. “I’m glad Senator Thune set a date certain in September to bring it up because the challenges facing student athletes and universities aren’t going away.
“The Protect College Sports Act provides stability and gives first-ever federal NIL rights and scholarship and healthcare protections for athletes. And this bipartisan bill is how we protect women’s and Olympic sports. I look forward to its passage in September.”
But the five-week delay allows for domestic or world events to intercede and potentially push the PCSA down the Senate’s priority list. And it creates time for additional scrutiny by skeptical legislators.
Another obstacle along the PCSA’s path to becoming law: the midterm elections.
“The bill is not even close to being done being amended and horse-traded,” Kyle Saunders, Colorado State’s faculty athletics representative and a political science professor, wrote on the social media platform X.
Even if the bill passes the Senate, the House of Representatives offers a slew of obstacles.
As constructed, the bill is opposed by the Congressional Black Caucus.
And the NAACP.
And the AFL-CIO.
And, quite possibly, by the House Majority Leader, Steve Scalise, who represents a state (Louisiana) with a school (LSU) in a conference (the SEC) that has offered only begrudging support for the bill.
In terms college football fans might understand, the failure to generate a pre-recess floor vote in the Senate seemingly has turned the PCSA into a two-touchdown underdog.
It seems only massive changes, likely to provisions governing athlete compensation and conference expansion, will produce the votes needed for the bill to become law.
And if it doesn’t? If years of lobbying Congress for help prove fruitless for college sports executives, major changes could come sooner than later — all likely initiated by the SEC and Big Ten.
There are two possible paths for the industry’s most powerful conferences, which have grown frustrated by uncapped roster spending and unenforceable eligibility rules:
— Self-governance.
In this scenario, the SEC and Big Ten would continue competing against other leagues but remove themselves from the NCAA’s governance umbrella in order to establish their own rules and enforcement mechanisms.
Asked about self-governance at Big Ten football media days last month, commissioner Tony Petitti said: “The first thing we are focused on is getting the (PCSA) right. It’s taking up a tremendous amount of time. If the bill can’t address some of the changes we need to make … the first place you go is with our colleagues in the other conferences and the NCAA.
“How do we come together to make the necessary changes so we can give our athletic directors, coaches and student athletes a system that seems to be more sustainable? It’s not a breakaway. But is there another path … where you have conference-based rules?”
— A clean breakaway.
In the Defcon 1 outcome, the SEC and Big Ten would not only create their own rules but also compete only against themselves: SEC teams vs. SEC teams, Big Ten teams vs. Big Ten teams, with the winners of each conference (potentially) meeting in the postseason.
The obstacles along this road are as steep as the face of El Capitan. For one thing, their network overlords (ESPN for the SEC, Fox for the Big Ten) would not be pleased with the lack of inter-conference competition. Also, the impact on the ACC and Big 12 would be such that politicians, especially at the state level, could get involved.
Neither conference appears ready to make that leap at this point.
“‘Breakaway’ is a word that creates a lot of emotion,” Petitti said. “I’ve never heard that anybody doesn’t want to play anybody else.”
Looming over everything is the specter of a college football super league.
The PCSA includes an anti-super league provision. But the combination of legislative failure and campus frustration could accelerate the arrival of an endgame that many industry observers believe is inevitable: The formation of a mini-NFL that would generate bajillions of dollars annually and leave the other 90-something schools to compete on a lower tier.
Or as Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, the former chairman of NBC Sports, told the Senate Commerce Committee during a PCSA hearing in June:
“If you wanted to maximize media value around college football, I think you would take 24-to-30 teams, create unbelievably competitive scheduling … and start to get a (revenue) number that more closely resembles an NFL number.”
That’s why the Protect College Sports Act should matter to fans — not because of the roster retention pool or the revenue for Olympic sports or the rules governing eligibility but because, pass or fail, this year or next, the outcome is monumental for the trajectory of college sports.
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