WASHINGTON (AP) — The NCAA’s years-long effort to get lawmakers to address myriad problems in college sports may finally be paying off in the fresh, Republican-controlled Congress.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican expected to chair the powerful Commerce Committee, recently said a college sports bill would be a top priority and accused Democrats of dragging their feet on necessary reforms. He still needs Democratic support for a bill to reach the required 60-vote threshold in the Senate, and that will require a compromise with lawmakers who care more about athletes’ well-being than giving the NCAA more authority.
“Obviously the situation is much easier when Republicans are in control,” said Tom McMillen, a former Democratic congressman who played college basketball and led an association of Division I athletic directors for several years. “From the NCAA’s perspective, this is kind of an ideal scenario for them.”
What is at stake
Cruz and others want to preserve at least parts of an amateur athlete model at the heart of college sports that has provided billions of dollars in scholarships and fueled the United States’ decades-long success in the Olympics.
The outlines of a bill have been debated for years, with those conversations influenced by millions of dollars in lobbying by the NCAA and the richest sports conferences. Since Charlie Baker, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, took over as president in March 2023, the NCAA has found a more receptive audience on Capitol Hill.
There is some bipartisan consensus that Congress should grant the NCAA a restricted antitrust exemption, which would allow it to set rules for college sports without the constant threat of lawsuits, in exchange for national standards for compensation for athletes’ names , Image and Likeness (NIL) requirements are required to override a patchwork of state laws.
These are the key elements of the legislation that Cruz has supported for more than a year. Staffers in his office and those of fellow Republican Jerry Moran of Kansas and Democrats Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Cory Booker of New Jersey spent months negotiating a bill that would have been introduced in the current, divided Congress, but those talks stalled Stuck.
Bipartisan support key
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the outgoing chairwoman of the Commerce Committee, has been working to advance college sports reform since 2019 but has struggled to reach consensus on the legislation. Still, she agrees with Cruz on at least one issue that Congress could solve — one she saw in her home state with the dissolution of the Pac-12 Conference.
“At the moment, large schools and their sponsors are pitted against smaller schools. We need a predictable national NIL standard that ensures a level playing field for college athletes and schools,” Cantwell said in a statement to The Associated Press.
A Supreme Court decision in 2021 paved the way for athletes to receive NIL compensation, and now a pending $2.8 billion settlement in multiple antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA has set the table for more than just damages , which was paid to former athletes for the NIL money they could not receive but earned a revenue share from the schools on their current and future college stars.
In addition to these changes, which the courts forced the NCAA to make, the organization has expanded health benefits for athletes and introduced fresh scholarship guarantees. These fresh rules went into effect on August 1, and the NCAA argues that they no longer need to require Congress to mandate such benefits.
“We believe members of Congress will see the results of these positive changes next session, and our goal is to build on them and address the remaining issues that only Congress can address,” NCAA senior Tim Buckley said Vice President for Foreign Affairs.
Delicate employment problem
The NCAA’s main goal — and one that appears achievable under Republican leadership — is to “prevent student-athletes from being forced to become employees of their schools,” Buckley said.
There are several pending efforts by athletes to unionize, and at least one of them is already in court.
The NCAA has sent athletes to Capitol Hill to tell Congress they don’t want employee status, and some Democrats who previously supported employing athletes have acknowledged the potential drawbacks. These include drastic cuts to women’s and Olympic sports, which could be necessary for universities to meet their salary obligations, as well as financial complications for athletes, whose scholarships and other benefits would become taxable.
“For example, the historically black colleges and universities came together and said, ‘Forcing us to treat student-athletes like employees will result in us canceling most of our athletic programs.’ That would be a catastrophic outcome,” Cruz said during an appearance at Texas A&M University in September.
Still, too broad anti-employment language in a law could jeopardize its chances of passage. Democrats are reluctant to pass legislation viewed as too amiable to the NCAA. Booker, a moderate on the issue of athlete employment and a former football player at Stanford, nevertheless stressed in a statement that he would only support an athlete-friendly bill.
“For too long, the college sports system has prioritized power and profit over the rights and well-being of college athletes. And while we have made some hard-fought progress in recent years, there is still more to do,” Booker said. “My advocacy on their behalf will continue in the next Congress.”
Cruz could also come under pressure from his own side. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who spent more than two decades as a Division I football coach, has called on Congress to mandate penalties for players who break NIL contracts.
While Cruz understands the need for compromise, he intends to apply the power at his disposal to advance his – and to some extent the NCAA’s – priorities.
“As chairman, I can call hearings. I’m in charge of every Commerce Committee hearing,” Cruz said on a recent episode of his weekly podcast. “I get to decide which bills get flagged and which don’t, and it gives you the opportunity to push an agenda that is just qualitatively different.”
