‘Our last hope’: Federal bill hopes to stabilize college sports — if it can survive opposition

CHARLOTTE — Congress is closer than ever to voting on legislation that would impose stricter transfer and eligibility limits in college athletics and end the threat of a super league — a proposal that supporters say would deliver more predictability and end the stream of lawsuits to college sports where schools, coaches and fans are constantly worried about players departing after only a year on their team. 

The primary hangup: opposition from the two richest and most popular athletic conferences, who have member schools in 26 states and dominate college football.

The bipartisan Protect College Sports Act — backed by the Atlantic Coast Conference’s commissioner, the chancellors of all five of North Carolina’s public Football Bowl Subdivision teams, including NC State and UNC, and at least one of North Carolina’s U.S. senators — is currently making its way through the U.S. Senate. 

The powerful Southeastern Conference and Big Ten Conference, which include 34 teams spread across the nation, have objected to the effort. So have lawmakers representing member states.

The bill’s top sponsors are pushing for a full floor vote, perhaps as soon as this month, while also listening to objections and offering changes to secure more support from the SEC and Big Ten, who have worked with sponsors on broad changes but remain opposed to the bill. 

The bill would: 

• Codify in federal law a recent NCAA rule limiting college eligibility to five seasons from initial enrollment up to the age of 24 with limited exemptions, which has already drawn legal challenges from athletes not eligible for a fifth season
• Limit athletes to one penalty-free transfer in their career with certain exceptions including the departure of a head coach or graduate study
• Cap agent fees at 5%
• Allow stricter enforcement of NCAA rules around name, image and likeness payments, including requiring deals of more than $600 to be disclosed 
• Provide limited antitrust exemption to NCAA
• Prohibit teams in major conferences from cutting women’s and Olympic sports teams
• Limit conference realignment among power conferences and prohibit third parties from creating a super league
• Require scheduling deals among some historic rivals
• Allow for the pooling of television rights revenue and create a distribution formula for included revenue
• Remain neutral on the employee status of athletes
• Make scholarships nonrevocable based on performance, injury or roster management
• Say that college football season should end by January 8.

It’s aimed at settling issues that are tying up colleges and conferences in lawsuits that cost endless manhours and untold millions. If enacted, the legislation would offer some certainty for administrators amid a dizzying array of changes that have shaken up college sports since 2021, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down some NCAA limits on athlete compensation. The NCAA responded by allowing, for the first time, players from their name, image and likeness though that wasn’t part of the 9-0 court decision. 

Some conference leaders have now been seeking help for years. 

“This is our last hope relative to getting some help from Congress,” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said at the league’s preseason football media event in Charlotte. “I don't know that I could share what does that look like beyond if we're not able to get some help there, because I don't think anybody wants to go in that direction just yet. We are truthfully working as hard as we can to make this thing work.”

Changes to college sports

There is broad support — though not unanimous – for some of the provisions in the bill, especially around eligibility and transfers. Through legal action, athletes have earned additional seasons of eligibility with schools testing the limits annually. The NCAA’s rules around one-time transfers were struck down in federal court. North Carolina was one of the states that challenged the rule after UNC football player Tez Walker’s request for a waiver was denied in 2023.

The combination of unlimited transfers, revenue sharing and largely unchecked name, image and likeness payments have led to annual free agency. 

Quarterback Darian Mensah began his career at Tulane before transferring to Duke for a reported two-year, $8-million contract. But after leading the Blue Devils to their first outright ACC football championship since 1962 in his first season in Durham, Mensah transferred to national runner-up Miami for an even larger payday and bigger spotlight. Former NC State starting quarterback MJ Morris opted to redshirt after four games to preserve an extra year of eligibility and the potential payday that came with it.

Each attempt to establish NCAA rules around eligibility, transfers or who can pay those millions have been met almost immediately with state lawsuits where athletes have, in many cases, won. Given the money now being paid to athletes, it makes sense for most to try to extend their playing careers.

“Whatever the circumstances are, you just go to the local courthouse in whatever community that school is,” Phillips said. “It's going to be hard for a judge to not take the side of a student-athlete, an 18- 19- 20- 22-year-old. I get it. But that becomes a problem.”

It’s become a big enough problem to attract the attention of President Donald Trump, who formed five advisory committees to tackle the issue and held a roundtable at the White House. He has joined with others in questioning the sustainability of the system and what it could mean for college opportunities particularly among women’s and Olympic sports. Colleges and their athletic boosters are spending record amounts on athletics, often at a deficit, primarily on football and men’s basketball. Some schools have cut Olympic sports to save money.

“The whole educational system is going to go out of business because of this,” Trump said in March. 

Rules that prohibited athletes from accepting benefits beyond their scholarship, including a ride home or a free breakfast, have been replaced by a system that allows them to make millions to play for their school — or, in some cases, four and five schools in their career.  Revenue sharing, ushered in after a $3-billion settlement between the NCAA, major conferences and former athletes, was supposed to represent a cap on salaries. It has instead become a floor as schools and programs spend well above the number to field winning teams, 

“I don't know how much more disrupted college sports could be, but we would enter that ecosystem if we can't get something done,” Phillips said.

Opposition to the Protect College Sports Act

Still not everyone is on board with the totality of the measure, including one of Trump’s staunchest allies in the Senate.

Former college football coach Tommy Tuberville, who now represents Alabama in the Senate, referred to the legislation as a “federal takeover of college sports,” saying the bill “gets too deep into the businesses of universities, conferences, athletics departments while doing far too little to give the student-athlete the stability and clarity that, actually, they need.” Tuberville has proposed competing legislation that was much more limited in scope.

Tuberville, who coached at Auburn, represents the heart of SEC country. The 16-team league is home to historic football heavyweights such as Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Louisiana State, Georgia and Florida. The 18-member Big Ten, which stretches across the nation, includes football powers such as Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Southern Cal, Oregon and defending national champion Indiana. The leagues have several issues with the bill.

“It does not meaningfully preempt the patchwork of state laws or provide the protections needed to make and enforce consistent rules, both essential to long-term stability in college athletics,” the SEC and Big Ten said in a joint statement in early June.

However, Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican and one of the leads on the bill, told the Associated Press on July 17 that he believes the Protect College Sports Act likely has the support it needs to make it through the upper chamber. Senate aides told WRAL that supporters were canvassing their colleagues this week to identify issues other members might have ahead of a potential floor vote.

"We probably have 60 votes," Schmitt said. 

Yahoo! Sports reported Friday on a new round of revisions, meant to assuage the SEC and Big Ten and garner widespread support in the Senate to enhance the chances of eventual House passage. Some Democrats object to the lack of more athlete protections, including employment. At least 10 unions that represent professional athletes have come out against the legislation. And some lawmakers from SEC or Big Ten states are opposed. 

North Carolina's Budd backs legislation

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, are the original sponsors of the legislation, which now has three Republican and three Democratic co-sponsors. It passed the Senate Commerce Committee on a 19-9 vote with Sen. Ted Budd, a North Carolina Republican, voting in support.

“Right now, there is a need to establish the rules of the road for college sports,” Budd told WRAL in a statement. “Congress can stabilize this system by protecting student-athletes, preserving fair competition, and maximizing the opportunities created through collegiate athletics. As a supporter of the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act, I am hopeful we can secure the votes needed to protect college athletics at every level in North Carolina.”

North Carolina is the second most populous state without a school in the SEC or the Big Ten. Only New York, which the Big Ten tried to claim part of with nearby Rutgers in New Jersey, has more population and no team in those two leagues. The conferences each made more than $1 billion in total revenue in 2024-25, the last year for which records are available. They control the future of the College Football Playoff. And, outside of football independent Notre Dame, every football-playing school in the nation would move mountains for an invite to one of the top conferences.

“The one throughline, no matter how it's been, pre-NIL, post-NIL, those on top in this sport don't make decisions for what's best for the sport because they're on top and they don't want to do it,” Duke football coach Manny Diaz said.

Attack on the SEC, Big Ten

The bill, in many ways, seemed to target those two leagues, who set off the latest round of realignment by adding Texas and Oklahoma (SEC) and Southern Cal, UCLA, Oregon and Washington (Big Ten). The latter raid led to the collapse of the Pac-12. An earlier version of the legislation would have prohibited conferences with more than $1 billion in annual revenue from adding programs from other big conferences. That threshold has now been lowered to include the ACC and the Big 12, the other two conferences of the “Power 4” leagues.

Further, the bill would allow for the voluntary pooling of television rights and revenue. There are many who believe college football could generate even larger media rights contracts by selling them as a collective as the National Football League does. But the Big Ten and SEC generate more than $1.5 billion (and climbing) from their own television rights deals and they are in no hurry to pool with schools from the Mid-American Conference or Sun Belt.

“Do you take the goodness of it and deal with the rest of it or do you do nothing and we’re still in that same situation in a year?” said NC State athletics director Boo Corrigan, who supports the bill. “In looking at it, does the good outweigh the bad? Is there enough positive in this that it makes sense to move forward with it?”

It could be now or never for federal legislation – or as Phillips put it, “our last hope.” The SEC has indicated it could implement its own rules for conference members if Congress is unable to act. The drastic measure might be better positioned to escape antitrust scrutiny from courts because of its smaller footprint than the NCAA.

A House bill to regulate college sports — the SCORE Act — never received a vote in the chamber. Even if the latest bill passes the Senate, the House must take it up as well. Congress has limited time on its calendar before the 2026 elections, which could tip the balance of power in Washington. A Democrat-controlled Congress would likely push for greater athlete protections in a comprehensive bill.

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who has long worked on sports issues and is opposed to the bill, thinks it sells players short.

“Its primary effect seems to be to limit the compensation of athletes while protecting the huge salaries of all the adults — coaches, ADs, sports industry executives — who are getting rich off the performance of the players,” Murphy said. “And it gives the NCAA an antitrust exemption that no other industry gets just so they can keep underpaying the athletes. Sure, there are some good things for players in this bill, but this seems like a great deal for the NCAA and the rich guys who run college sports, and a bad deal for athletes.”