Senate passes Cruz-Cantwell bill capping college athlete payments

By The Conservative Desk (/journals/conservative-desk)

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.

NCAA President Charlie Baker issued a statement after the vote calling the Senate’s action "a historic milestone for student-athletes and universities alike," while adding that "there is still much work left to do to ensure this vital framework becomes law."

The opposing case was stated on the floor. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., argued that young athletes who perform a service worth billions in the free market were finally getting what they lawfully deserve. "And the industry had two choices: they could either work out a new set of rules with the athletes ... or they could come to Congress and get their illegal system deemed legal. That's what they are essentially doing here today," he said. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., a former college football player, has opposed the measure and pointed to years in which athletes saw their images used without pay and then won in court. The AFL-CIO criticized the bill as stripping power athletes had only recently gained. The NAACP opposed it on grounds that it would shield schools and conferences from legal accountability. Jason Stahl of the College Football Players Association has been among the athlete-side voices against the approach. Some civil-rights groups and critics contend the measure gives institutions and the NCAA too much control and restricts athletes’ compensation and rights.

Those objections deserve a clear reply from the record the bill actually writes. It does not erase NIL. It writes a federal right to it. It does not leave athletes without medical or academic protection; it mandates multi-year injury coverage and long scholarship guarantees. It does not invent a free-for-all for conferences; it limits membership size and slows realignment so that traditional schedules and rivalries are not endlessly liquidated for television leverage. The alternative on offer has been a patchwork of state NIL statutes, serial litigation and roster churn in which non-revenue athletes absorb the cuts. Rule of law, in this setting, means one set of enforceable standards rather than a race among jurisdictions and courts.

Not every Republican joined the majority. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., opposed the bill as going "way too far inserting the federal government into collegiate athletics." That is a serious limited-government objection, and the vote did not erase it. The majority that formed around Cruz and Cantwell concluded that the status quo was already a form of national policy by lawsuit and settlement, only without democratic accountability or durable protections for the sports that do not print money.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., was among the senators involved in the effort. Senate Majority Leader John Thune was among the named figures in the chamber as the bill advanced. The vote itself was decisive: 77 in favor, 22 against, on a Monday night session.

The House is the next decision. Members are on recess until after the November midterm elections. Prospects there remain uncertain, with objections from both parties, and conference leaders have developed a separate plan in case the bill fails. Until the House acts and a president signs, the caps, the medical guarantees, the transfer limits and the conference rules do not take effect. The Senate has put a national framework on the table. The House will decide whether college sports get it.