WASHINGTON — A bill that top lawmakers and athletic leaders have described as the best chance to stabilize college sports cleared a key vote in the Senate on Thursday with bipartisan support after weeks of input from schools, conferences and athletes.
The bipartisan Protect College Sports Act aims to regulate payments to players, limit them to one free transfer over their careers and restrict coaches from changing jobs during a season. It advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee on a 19-9 vote Thursday and now heads to the full Senate for consideration.
The legislation is the product of months of negotiations between Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top lawmakers on the Senate Commerce Committee, and it comes as lawmakers in both chambers of Congress are grappling with whether it’s time for them to intervene in college sports.
“The greatest risk facing college athletics today is not any single controversy, court decision, or headline. The greatest threat to college sports is inaction,” Cruz said in opening remarks.
Bill moves forward without Big Ten and SEC support
The committee vote advancing the bill — which included Senate Majority Leader John Thune voting in favor — followed endorsements from several athletic conferences, the NFL and its players union and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. The Olympic committee backed the revised measure after lawmakers added additional protections for women’s and Olympic sports.
Yet the two most powerful conferences in college sports — the Southeastern and Big Ten conferences — are not supporting it. In a joint statement released Thursday morning, the two conferences wrote that “revisions are needed to secure our support for the bill.”
“What we did today was say we’re not going to let the most powerful, richest conferences dictate to the rest of America what’s going to happen to 500,000 athletes,” Cantwell said after the committee vote.
Earlier this month, the Congressional Black Caucus also urged the Senate to suspend action on the bill in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that effectively disabled a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Democratic Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, a member of the CBC, voted against the legislation Thursday.
Support and opposition for the bill does not fall neatly along party lines, reflecting the national reach of SEC and Big Ten schools and broader divisions in Congress.
While President Donald Trump has backed the bill, multiple Republicans opposed the legislation Thursday, while several Democrats supported it.
Some of the senators who voted against the bill represent states that are home to prominent SEC and Big Ten programs, including Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat, and Republican Sens. Todd Young of Indiana and Roger Wicker of Mississippi.
“We still are trying to get some changes that the Big Ten would like to see,” Peters told The Associated Press late Wednesday.
A long road ahead
Clearing the committee is just the first step in a long process.
Passage through the Senate is far from guaranteed, as leaders already have a packed schedule and a dwindling number of legislative days left before the November election. The bill would need to clear a 60-vote threshold in the 53-47 Republican-controlled chamber.
The bill also would need to clear the House. Earlier this year, House Republican leadership had been working toward a vote on its own college sports bill, known as the SCORE Act, before the Congressional Black Caucus announced its unanimous opposition.
Still, supporters on Thursday touted the committee action as a massive step forward.
“Today we are proving that we are resilient in keeping this product moving,” Cantwell said.
AP’s Eddie Pells in Southampton, N.Y., contributed.
