Senate passes Cruz bill to restore order in college sports

Sen. Ted Cruz stood on the Senate floor Monday night and framed the choice in a single question.

"Will we protect the future of women's sports, of Olympic sports, of non-revenue sports, or allow college athletics to be consumed by uncontrollable bidding wars that force schools to cut programs simply because they don't generate headlines or massive televisions contracts?"

Hours later the chamber answered. The Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act, 77-22.

The bill, S.4668, sponsored by Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., now goes to the House. It sets federal rules for name, image and likeness deals, revenue sharing, transfers and eligibility. It caps direct athlete payments at about $50 million a year per school. It regulates agents. It makes conference moves harder. Supporters cast the vote as a defense of a uniquely American institution against a market that had broken loose from any stable set of rules.

Cruz pressed the case without hesitation. "The answer to this question should be simple: We must act, and we must act now. We must pass the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act. This bill puts an end to the chaos plaguing college athletics." He added that the measure "is about what makes college sports uniquely American."

That framing lands on the ordinary stakes the coverage often skips. College athletics is not only a television product. It is the track athlete who is the first in a family to finish a degree, and the Olympic pipeline that still runs through campus programs. When bidding wars for football and basketball talent drain athletic budgets, those sports are the first cut. A national framework that puts a ceiling on the arms race is, on this reading, a limited and practical use of federal power to keep the rest of the enterprise alive.

Cantwell, speaking on the floor before the vote, put the revenue-sharing piece at the center. She called a federal right to NIL essential, then said compensation through revenue sharing was "probably the most important thing we could possibly enshrine in federal law today." Congress, she said, was stating for the first time that an athlete gets a percentage of media rights, ticket sales and sponsorship. She also argued the bill would stop schools from pulling money out of education and tuition to feed a sports spending race, and that it would stabilize women’s and Olympic sports.

The structure is specific. The measure builds on the House v. NCAA settlement’s revenue-sharing figure of roughly $21.5 million to $21.6 million per school. It adds a $22.5 million retention fund and up to $5 million, reaching as high as $27.5 million in related support, directed at women’s and Olympic sports. Agent fees are capped at 5 percent. Athletes receive a 10-year scholarship guarantee after eligibility so they can finish degrees. Division I schools must cover out-of-pocket costs for sports-related injuries for five years after eligibility ends. Athletes may transfer once over five years without losing eligibility, with exceptions for a coaching change, sport discontinuation or documented misconduct. A five-year total eligibility clock begins at age 19 or high-school graduation. Conferences are capped at 19 to 20 members, amended from 19 to 20 during debate. Schools switching conferences face a three-year independence requirement, reduced from five years, that phases out entirely six years after enactment.

President Donald Trump called passage "a really big deal" on Truth Social. "It will not only save college sports, it will save the colleges themselves," he wrote.