Cruz, Cantwell unveil bipartisan bill to regulate college sports

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., will introduce a bipartisan bill designed to regulate payments to college athletes, limit transfers and restrict midseason coaching moves, the senators told The Associated Press.

The measure, called the Protect College Sports Act, or PCSA, would limit players to one unrestricted transfer during their college careers, adopt a policy close to the five-year eligibility period the NCAA appears ready to enact and ban midseason coaching changes. “This is a stability bill, not just an NIL bill,” Cruz said, referring to name, image and likeness payments he said have reshaped the industry.

The bill would offer targeted antitrust protections and preempt much of the patchwork of state NIL laws, the senators said. In exchange, Cruz said the measure would include what he called “public-facing protections” for athletes in 10 areas, including guarantees for health insurance and scholarships and stricter regulations for NIL deals from third parties. Cantwell said she and Cruz moved on the legislation because “the college sports system is in a bit of chaos.”

The senators said the proposal also would rework the Sports Broadcasting Act to allow conferences to pool television rights. Conferences that choose to pool would be required to use a percentage of any revenue increase to support women’s and Olympic sports, the lawmakers said — a provision Cantwell acknowledged could be a dealbreaker for some conferences.

The bill draws on elements of previous proposals known as SCORE and SAFE and seeks roughly the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate, the senators said. The SCORE Act was pulled from the House schedule after the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP opposed it, and Cantwell said the new measure takes a neutral stance on whether college athletes should be classified as employees.

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