The Senate on Monday night passed the Protect College Sports Act, a bill that would establish federal rules for name, image and likeness deals and grant the NCAA and its member conferences a limited antitrust exemption to enforce them. The final vote was 77-22.
Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, led the bill. It now moves to the House, where its fate is uncertain.
President Donald Trump had pushed lawmakers to act before the summer recess. Speaking at a White House event with Team USA athletes, he said, "I'm urging the House and the Senate to come together, bipartisan if possible and it looks like they have done, to send the bill to my desk and I will sign it."
Trump added, "I think we have no choice. We have to get that done. If we don't, we're very foolish. Nobody knows what will happen. We're in Never-Never Land. We're not going to let that be happening."
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said before the vote, "I think most people acknowledge that the current landscape of college sports is a mess. It needs to be addressed."
The Washington Examiner reports the legislation would establish a federal framework for NIL payments, cap the amount universities can give directly to athletes, create rules for transfers, and set other regulations governing college sports. According to CNN, the bill is a major overhaul of college athletics. OutKick notes it covers standards for NIL deals, athlete compensation, recruiting, eligibility and transferring.
The bill's central feature is an antitrust exemption that would allow the NCAA, conferences and schools to enforce certain rules without the threat of lawsuits that have reshaped the sport over the past several years. Court decisions dismantled the NCAA's old amateurism model and opened the door to NIL deals, which grew quickly with little national oversight.
Under the measure, the NCAA would receive greater legal protection to enforce the uniform framework, while athletes would gain a defined set of rules for compensation, transfers and eligibility.
Critics of the bill argue that capping payments could limit what athletes earn, while supporters say the current system is unsustainable. The bill passed with broad bipartisan support, drawing 77 votes in favor.
The House must now take up the legislation. If it passes there, it would go to Trump's desk. Trump has already signaled he would sign it. "I think we have no choice," he said. "We have to get that done."
Our Take
There's a reason this bill cruised through the Senate with 77 votes: college sports is broken. The courts blew up the old rules, the NCAA threw up its hands, and what followed was a free-for-all. Boosters with deep pockets bought rosters. The transfer portal turned into free agency with no salary cap. Nobody knew what was allowed, and the athletes caught in the middle had no stable framework to rely on.
Is this bill perfect? No. Washington rarely produces perfect. The antitrust exemption is the part to watch closest. Once you hand the NCAA legal cover, you have to make sure it doesn't become a license to trample the rights of the very athletes it claims to protect. The cap on direct university payments also raises a real question: who decides what a player's name and image are worth? If the answer is a bureaucrat in a conference office, that's a problem.
But this is a step toward order. And it shows that when Congress actually does its job, it can still find common ground. Trump pushed for it. Cruz and Cantwell hashed it out. The House should take it up without delay and send it to the president's desk.
If they don't, the chaos continues. Which side will your representative choose?
