Three questions that have been intensely debated regarding the Protect College Sports Act are:
Who exactly is going to save college sports? From what and who is it being saved? Is the federal bill in the best interests of student-athletes or the rich and wealthy (and there is a distinction between the two) men and women who wield the power and economic might that has shaped the current college sports landscape?
There is inarguably a miasma hovering over big-time college athletics which is a massive business. A report published last month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office states the 352 Division I athletic programs spent a total of $20.8 billion in the 2023-24 academic year and produced revenue of $13.1 billion. So control of money and student-athletes, the latter which can be a euphemism for human labor considering that college athletes in revenue-generating sports such as football and basketball are valuable commodities, is the most logical cause of calls for reform.
Money for the top college athletes is plentiful. Their Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals exceed the contracts of some professional basketball and football players. For example, University of Miami quarterback Darian Mensah received an NIL deal worth roughly $10 million dollars to transfer from Duke to Miami this past winter. Prior to that agreement, Mensah had signed a two-year, $8 million deal with Duke in December of 2024. He epitomized America’s free-market, capitalist system championed by those who now seek to restrict the liberties exercised by college athletes. The United States Senate adjourned on Sunday for a recess without voting on the Protect College Sports Act. However, a vote will be held when the legislative body returns from its break on September 14 after Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican representing South Dakota, filed a cloture motion on August 5 for a vote to proceed.
The PCSA, a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell from Washington, requires that at least 60 of the 100 senators vote for its passage. If successful in the Senate, the bill would then be sent to the House of Representatives for a vote. Passage in the House would move the bill to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.
The President, who has characterized the college sports system as “a mess,” signed an executive order on April 3 titled “Urgent National Action to Save College Sports,” that according to an April 7 White House press release, “protects college sports by using federal authority to support enforcement of clear, consistent, and fair rules on eligibility, transfers, and compensation, while promoting sustainable revenue sharing and stronger protections for student athletes.”
While President Trump has implored the senators to vote for the PCSA, numerous elected officials and organizations oppose the proposed legislation, including the Congressional Black Caucus and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, better known by its acronym AFL-CIO, and the AFL-CIO Sports Council.
Many of the PCSA’s critics point to the bill granting the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) an antitrust exemption for rules entailing, among others, media rights pooling, transfer restrictions and athlete eligibility. The PCSA would afford the NCAA the ability to autonomously establish and enforce policies, assert its dissenters, while preventing a means for student-athletes to collectively bargain.
One can plausibly contend that the PCSA would shift power and control back to the NCAA after athletes gained substantial economic liberation and freedom of choice with the advent of NIL rules on July 1, 2021, and the unlimited transfers rule in 2024, the latter amended by President Trump’s aforementioned executive order.
