Senate Passes College Sports Bill As It Punts On Tackling AI, National Debt And Flock Before Midterms

The Senate passed legislation Monday to protect college athletes’ name, image and likeness (NIL), which included a limited anti-trust exemption for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), while other pressing issues affecting the nation remained unsolved.

The Protect College Sports Act of 2026 would establish requirements for NIL agreements for college student athletes, prohibit institutions or conferences from restricting athletes from entering NIL agreements and mandate out-of-pocket medical coverage for sports-related injuries at Division I schools; the bill would grant the NCAA, conferences and schools limited immunity from federal antitrust laws to enforce rules on transfers and compensation caps. The Senate passed the bill with no reported plans to address the national debt, AI safety concerns and wide-spread surveillance involving Flock Safety cameras before November’s midterm election.

The legislation would establish a federal NIL right and require students to disclose any NIL compensation worth more than $600 to their institution and prohibit institutions, conferences or entities from providing athletes with compensation that circumvents the limit on revenue sharing with athletes.

Athletic departments with more than $80 million in annual revenue would be prohibited from cutting roster spots, grant-in-aid opportunities, women’s or Olympic sports teams below 2024-25 levels for nine years.

Lobbyists spent at least $31 million lobbying on college athletics, including on the bill, which involved 36 members of the NCAA’s four most powerful conferences and over 60 colleges, according to OpenSecrets.

Colleges such as Notre Dame, Ohio State and Western Michigan University were among those that lobbied heavily for the measure, according to OpenSecrets.

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell led the effort to advance the bill out of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, where they serve as chairman and ranking member. It passed the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster in a 74 to 24 vote on Sept. 15 and passed a second procedural vote Thursday.

Cruz expressed hope that the bill could pass before the midterms so Republicans could campaign on its passage being a victory for the party, according to Semafor. He called on House Speaker Mike Johnson to reconvene the House to pass the bill so it could reach President Donald Trump’s desk.

“I believe the speaker will call the House back and pass this bill, and the House could pass the bill in a day,” Cruz told Semafor Monday. “I believe the speaker will do that, and I urge President Trump to sign the bill on the set of College Game Day at a game this fall. And I believe we will see this bill signed into law before Election Day.”

Civil rights groups, labor organizations and player associations voiced opposition and lobbied against the legislation. The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the AFL-CIO Sports Council actively lobbied against the bill, calling it a “union-busting” measure that set caps on athlete compensation without requiring collective bargaining or giving athletes a seat at the table.

The College Football Players Association and Athletes.org criticized the bill for placing restrictions on student athletes rather than coaches and administrators.

“College athletes deserve the same freedoms and opportunities as every other American citizen. Yet this bill would put federally protected limitations on athletes, which were otherwise ruled illegal, with no guardrails on coaches (except to not leave mid-season), administrators or any other party who benefits financially from college sports,” an Athletes.org blog from May argued.

Critics, including Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Cory Booker of New Jersey, argued the bill granted antitrust exemptions and financial protections to the NCAA and major universities, giving them more power.

“What this bill does at its core is to protect a system of exploitation,” Murphy said. “Over and over again, courts have determined that colleges and the NCAA and conferences are violating the law.”

Murphy introduced an amendment that would have replaced a portion of the bill with his legislation, the College Athlete Right to Organize Act, which would define a college athlete as an employee of their college if they receive direct compensation from their college, define colleges as their employers and prohibit any agreements that would waive the right of athletes to collectively bargain.

Cruz argued that Murphy wanted every college to be repeatedly sued and for every college athlete to unionize and give union dues to Democrats.

“Chris Murphy is running for president, so the only thing he cares about is making every trial lawyer in America happy,” Cruz said. “He wants every college to be sued nonstop. He wants no rules whatsoever. He wants every college athlete turned into an employee and a union member to give union dues to Democrats. But the good news is Chris Murphy has almost no support for his position because yesterday Chris got 24 votes out of 100. He didn’t even get a majority of Democrats to agree with him.”

“This is what is at stake,” Cruz continued. “If Congress doesn’t act, we’re going to keep seeing programs canceled, roster spots eliminated, scholarships lost, and women’s and Olympic sports put at risk.”

Thirteen conservative organizations urged the Senate to pass the bill in an Aug. 6 letter.

Senators did not appear optimistic that the chamber could get much else done before the midterms. Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy predicted the chamber would leave Washington after passing the college sports bill.

“I hope I’m wrong, but I think we’re going to make the football coaches happy and then go home,” Kennedy told the Daily Caller News Foundation and other reporters Thursday. “That’s what my prediction is. I’m not saying I’m happy with that, I’m actually not. But I mean, I could bubble wrap it and look in the eye and lie to you. But that’s what I believe.”

Researchers and tech leaders warned AI could destroy humanity within the next decade if development did not slow down. Senators and members of Congress introduced dozens of bills to impose more federal regulations on AI, although most remained stalled.

Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced legislation to ban AI superintelligence that could “surpass human intelligence or have the capacity to overthrow human governments.” Republican California Rep. Jay Obernolte and Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Lori Trahan introduced a bill to provide federal oversight of the “development and deployment of frontier artificial intelligence.”

Affordability remained the top issue for voters throughout the 2026 midterm cycle. The upper chamber will likely not take a vote on data centers before the election while Americans faced higher electricity bills.

Senators had not introduced any bills to address the $40 trillion national debt.

Prices soared since the start of the Iran war in February. The national average gas price rose from roughly $2.98 per gallon before the war to over $4 per gallon. The price averaged $4.47 per gallon as of Tuesday, according to AAA.

The typical U.S. household spent an estimated $200 to $240 on groceries due to higher fuel and transportation costs caused by the Iran war, according to CBS News.

Neither the House nor the Senate had voted on legislation related to automated surveillance. Lawmakers put forth several bills addressing Flock Safety cameras, including Republican Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett, who introduced a bill to ban federal agencies from using automated surveillance. No lawmaker has introduced a bill to outright ban Flock cameras.