Senate greenlights Protect College Sports Act with 77-22 vote

he federal bill aimed at reshaping the college sports industry took a major step toward becoming law Monday night when the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted, 77-22, to pass it.

The Protect College Sports Act moves next to the House of Representatives, where it will face some opposition from both sides of the political spectrum and a narrow window to garner support. House representatives are not scheduled to vote on any bills until after November's midterm elections. If it doesn't get through the House during a lame duck legislative session before a new Congress takes over in January, the full process would have to start from the beginning.

"This bill puts an end to the chaos plaguing college athletics," Ted Cruz said from the Senate floor Monday.

The bill provides the NCAA with an antitrust exemption designed to help the association enforce a cap on how much teams can pay their athletes as well as other rules that have deteriorated due to legal challenges in recent years. If the bill becomes law, athletes would be limited to transferring one time without penalty during their college career. It would reinforce new NCAA rules that limit athletes to a five-year window to compete in college that begins either when they finish high school or turn 19 years old.

The Senate considered seven amendments to the bill before its final vote Monday night. Most notably, the lawmakers narrowly voted against (52-47) a provision that would have capped how much money coaches can earn from their schools at $5 million per year and restricted how often they can change jobs.

"If the bill supporters believe these rules are necessary for athletes, they should be willing to apply them to coaches as well," Booker said. " ... This bill sells out college athletes."

A separate section of the bill attempts to tamp down the conference realignment that has significantly changed the economics of college sports in the last decade and helped put the Big Ten and SEC on a different financial trajectory than all other leagues. Membership for Power 4 leagues would be capped at 20 total schools under the bill. The Big Ten currently has 18 schools, and the SEC has 16. Any school jumping from one Power 4 conference to another would have to spend three years without any conference affiliation before joining their new league.

However, that three-year waiting period is set to disappear at the end of 2031 -- right around the time when the TV rights deals that hold together many conferences start to expire.

The Big Ten and SEC successfully lobbied in August to include a provision that increases how much money schools are allowed to pay directly to players. The current cap, established as part of a deal to resolve several federal antitrust lawsuits known as the House settlement, allows schools to spend up to roughly $21.5 million this year. Under the new bill, that would increase to roughly $49 million (with $5 million reserved for non-revenue and Olympic sports).

While the House settlement set spending limits, college sports officials have struggled to close loopholes that the wealthiest schools are using to construct rosters that far exceed the cap. Cantwell and Cruz say their new bill will be a more effective way to stop teams from circumventing the cap.

Cantwell said her goal in spearheading the legislation was to rein in the "runaway arms race" of spending on college sports, especially college football. The bill does not attempt to cap spending on coach and administrator salaries, facility upgrades or other expenses that have skyrocketed in the last 20 years.

"There is more to do, but we need to pass a bill tonight because we need to stop stealing money out of colleges and universities for tuitions, for professors, and putting it into an arms race on sports," Cantwell said from the Senate floor Monday night. "It is not the final solution. It is putting a pin in the problem and to stabilize the loss of women's and Olympic [sports] and to create the opportunity to discuss the larger structure moving forward. We are on our way to solving the problems that exist."

Critics say the effect of doubling the salary cap while also setting up a six-year time horizon for future conference realignment moves, could add more fuel to a spending war among Big 12 and ACC schools who are eager to grab one of the few remaining spots in the Big Ten or SEC.

The amendments the Senate approved Monday night added a provision that requires athletic departments to disclose if they accept investment from any foreign governments or sovereign wealth funds, increased the limit of teams in power conference from 19 to 20 and ensures that athletes still have the ability to sue their schools for a number of issues including sexual misconduct or wrongful death claims.

An amendment that would have increased a major injury medical care fund for former athletes from $100 million to $200 million came up one vote short of being added to the bill.

Booker, who submitted the amendment and is among the bill's most outspoken opponents, said the bill fails to fully protect college athletes and does not cap many of the spending categories that added to the financial arms race in college sports. He also said it was concerning that parts of the bill designed to protect women's sports programs expire after nine years while the antitrust exemption granted to the NCAA never expires.

Cantwell, Cruz and many college officials say the bill is "not perfect," but provides some much needed stability to an industry that has been unable to enforce its own rules for the last half decade. The NCAA and its members began asking Congress for help in earnest after a 2021 Supreme Court ruling made it clear that the association was not immune from antitrust rules that make it illegal for schools to collude in ways that limit the earning potential of college athletes.

Supporters of the bill, which includes most Division I conferences, say it provides a much-needed reset as the top end of college sports evolves into a more professional enterprise. Opponents, including the AFL-CIO and several groups hoping to organize college athletes into labor unions, say that stability should come from the same type of collective bargaining agreements that establish rules in pro sports leagues.

To unionize and collectively bargain under the current law, college athletes would have to be recognized as employees. The Protect College Sports Act remains neutral on employment. Several previous attempts to pass college sports legislation led by House Republicans included provisions that would make clear that athletes are not employees and cannot unionize. The employment issue is one significant hurdle for the bill to get through the House.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, a co-sponsor of the PCSA, said including expiration dates for some provisions in the bill as well as creating a commission to study the future of college sports leaves the door open for a different system such as collective bargaining if that option makes sense years from now.

"This calms the water and provides real structure," Schmitt told ESPN. "Down the road, there could be a different structure that Congress or the conferences agree on."

The House is scheduled to begin its next legislative session Nov. 9. They will meet and vote on laws for five weeks in November and December. Speaker Mike Johnson's office did not respond to a request for comment about the bill.