Congress is eyeing an intervention in collegiate athletics to set national standards for student compensation and preserve parts of the athletic conference system as states and schools struggle to govern it themselves.
Led by Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, the bipartisan legislation is dubbed the “NIL bill” because it would create national standards for the name, image and likeness system governing student-athlete compensation.
The legislation was rushing through the Senate in early August but did not make it over the finish line before lawmakers departed for a summer recess. The start of the college football season seems likely to push the bill back onto the Senate agenda.
Supporters of the bill said they are aiming for a vote in September.
“The Protect College Sports Act creates clear, national eligibility rules instead of leaving college sports trapped in endless legal chaos,” Mr. Cruz said last week in pushing for action.
The core of the bill is the creation of national NIL standards, heading off a patchwork of legislation that has emerged in dozens of states.
It would formalize standards for student-athletes by guaranteeing their right to earn money and requiring universities to adhere to uniform rules on scholarships, medical coverage and transfer protocols.
The current version also seeks to force schools to continue funding less popular sports and to establish guidelines for revenue pooling. Sponsors argue that the move would stabilize athletic budgets without forcing universities to draw from academic funds or impose new student fees.
Armies of lawyers have been working on the bill, with schools, states, athletic conferences and pro sports leagues all showing interest in the outcome.
The Big Ten and Southeastern Conference, two powerhouse collegiate athletic conferences, opposed an earlier version of the bill, saying it could undercut their own media deals.
They now support the bill, after Mr. Cruz and Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, made changes in late July.
Student-athletes had traditionally been constrained by NCAA rules, which blocked them from profiting from their participation, save for scholarships and other school benefits.
In 2021, the NCAA reversed course and allowed students to negotiate deals for their name, image and likeness.
The NCAA then reached the House v. NCAA court settlement that allowed schools to pay athletes directly through revenue sharing, supplanting the athletic booster “collectives” that had been paying.
Now, money is swamping the big sports, with top college football players earning millions of dollars, though 66.5% of players collected less than $10,000 annually, according to data from NIL platform Opendorse.
The rise in athletic budgets is putting a squeeze on school budgets. Some schools are asking students to pay “athletics fees” to help pay their sports stars.
Mr. Cruz said the current version of the Protect College Sports Act now has backing from 28 collegiate athletic conferences and more than 370 individual schools.
He called the bill “our last best chance to preserve one of America’s great unifying traditions for the athletes who compete and the fans who fill the stands.”
Mr. Cruz and other Senate backers were pushing for a vote on the legislation earlier this month, hoping for passage before the chamber departed for its summer recess.
That plan stumbled.
Among the opponents is the AFL-CIO, the labor union umbrella organization, which said the bill blocks student-athletes from full collective bargaining powers.
The AFL-CIO said courts and some states are moving toward more power for students, and the Senate bill would thwart that trend, restoring momentum to the big athletic conferences.
“We urge you to stand up for athletes and vote no,” the organization told senators.
The Congressional Black Caucus announced its opposition to the bill, saying Black athletes and coaches, who are often at the heart of big college sports, were sidelined in the negotiations. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, joined the NAACP and CBC members at a May press conference to call for athletes to boycott SEC institutions in states he accused of unleashing “Jim Crow-like, racially oppressive tactics” against Black political representation.
“While many in this debate view this as a matter of collegiate athletics, the Congressional Black Caucus maintains that this is about political representation. It is about economic opportunity. It is about whether those whose talent built college athletics will have a meaningful voice in determining its future,” the caucus said.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, Louisiana Republican, has also been vocal about his worries.
He points to football players who are taking a single class to stay on the field.
“We are seeing too many cases where the ’student’ in student-athlete is becoming optional,” he said.
President Trump tried to cajole the Senate into action earlier this month and has weighed in with an April executive order on college sports, his second on the subject.
His “Urgent National Action to Save College Sports” order directed federal agencies to review university grants as potential leverage to curb spending and instructed the Justice Department to “take appropriate measures” against state laws that undermine national standards.
Mr. Trump said some states were structuring their laws to help their major universities compete for big-name athletes. He said that created a “financial arms race” that threatened to impoverish schools as they pumped money into football and basketball at the expense of sports that draw smaller crowds.
When the Senate appeared poised to vote in early August, Mr. Trump pushed for passage.
“Without this Bill, millions of young Athletes will be hurt, programs will be canceled, Women’s and Olympic Sports will go away, the fans will be robbed, and Universities will go broke,” he said on social media.
Even if the Senate clears the bill, it needs action in the House.
A bill addressing NIL standards cleared committee last year and was slated for a vote in the full House in December, but the vote was never held.
