Congress
Inside the lobbying fight threatening Congress’ college sports overhaul
Efforts to pass legislation governing the nation’s $19 billion college sports industry are teetering amid a fierce lobbying fight over media rights and antitrust protections.
The Protect College Sports Act advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee on a 19-9 vote last month that pulled in seven Democrats. It was a hopeful moment for advocates of the Senate’s yearslong legislative push to regulate college athletics after the 2021 landmark Supreme Court decision that ultimately led to the NCAA allowing college athletes to profit off of their name, image and likeness.
But nine people close to the process say Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) have struggled to secure support among key industry players, including the Big Ten Conference and the Southeastern Conference, and universities are pushing for major changes to the bill before it’s brought to the floor.
With just a handful of legislative days left before the Senate leaves town for August recess, universities are on the cusp of starting another school year governed by a patchwork of state laws and court rulings that they say is financially unsustainable.
“It would be challenging for me to imagine supporting it if the Big Ten Conference and our two member universities in the state aren’t supportive,” Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) said of Cruz’s bill.
The bill, which lays out guidelines for everything from student athlete pay to negotiating broadcast rights, has languished amid pushback from the Big Ten and the SEC, the nation’s two most powerful college sports conferences. They’re zeroing in on a section allowing conferences to jointly negotiate their media rights, insisting it include explicit language clarifying that such action is voluntary.
Supporters of that “media pooling” provision argue it would bring stability to the industry by distributing streaming revenue more evenly across conferences, helping them absorb costs associated with the new era of paying student athletes outright. But the Big Ten and the SEC, which stand to lose the competitive edge their member schools reap from lucrative TV contracts, worry it would force them to share revenue with rival conferences — and they’re not the only ones taking issue with the section.
“We were unclear why the [media pooling provision] needed to be in this bill,” said Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman, who represents schools that could stand to profit from jointly negotiating media rights. “We’re not convinced that’s the magic wand.”
Ackerman said she had not yet seen modeling that proved media pooling would significantly increase revenue, adding that she had “all sorts of questions” around the provision that the committee had not answered.
Lawmakers have inched closer to bringing the SEC and the Big Ten on board in recent days, according to people directly engaged on the bill, but a deal remains elusive. Cruz and Cantwell hosted a call Sunday night with several commissioners and Notre Dame Athletic Director Pete Bevacqua alongside Vermont Sen. Peter Welch, one of the bill’s Democratic cosponsors.
“For how many conversations we have had with the Cruz and Cantwell team, I would say we’ve made stunningly little progress,” said one lobbyist directly engaged on the bill who was granted anonymity to describe private deliberations.
But Cruz regularly projects optimism that the bill is nearly ready. Asked if he was concerned about Republican votes for the bill if the two major conferences were not on board, he said no, adding that 70 percent of the committee voted for it.
“I think we will see something comparable on the floor next week,” he told Blue Light News on Wednesday. “I believe we’re going to pass this bill, and we’re going to see a large bipartisan vote on the floor of the Senate.”
Cruz has poured renewed energy into the effort to get the bill across the finish line in recent days, penning an op-ed in USA Today and meeting with other lawmakers including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, according to one person familiar with the matter.
Two people granted anonymity to share private discussions said Senate Majority Leader John Thune has expressed interest in moving the bill to the floor once it can get 60 votes.
Thune told reporters last week he thinks it’s unlikely PSCA will pass the Senate before August amid other major priorities on Blue Light News. But on Monday, he struck a slightly different tune, saying talks were “steering in a really good direction.” In a Wednesday interview with Blue Light News, Thune didn’t rule out teeing up the bill for the fall before the August break.
The Commerce panel has made some concessions to the conferences, including clarifying that schools can’t face litigation for declining to participate in media pooling, according to three people granted anonymity to describe private talks.
The lawmakers are also offering to provide schools with an additional $20 million pool of funds for retaining student athletes, in addition to $5 million specifically for name, image, likeness promotional opportunities in women’s sports, according to the people.
But new legislative text sent to the two conferences on Tuesday afternoon lacks several key demands that the SEC and the Big Ten say are critical to winning their support, including a provision clarifying that postseason tournaments and contests would be excluded from media pooling, according to a draft obtained by Blue Light News.
Complicating things further, the draft includes a blank section called “IGNITE HBCUs Sports and Media Act.”
“Major concessions were made overnight,” a committee aide told Blue Light News on Wednesday. “At this point, with every passing minute, odds are slimmer that we can move the bill before the August recess. We’ve been working night and day to make the revisions they said they needed, and we need an answer.”
The SEC has also pressed lawmakers on another priority: to insert “critical amendments” broadening antitrust and preemption language, according to University of Tennessee Chancellor Donde Plowman, who chairs a coalition of presidents and chancellors across the Southeastern Conference. This would shield the NCAA and conferences from certain antitrust lawsuits and block states from setting their own rules governing college athletics and athlete pay.
But the latest draft of the bill failed to meaningfully change those pieces of the legislation.
Cruz and Cantwell are also unlikely to win the support of a broad group of southern GOP senators without the backing of the SEC — a goal they continue to pursue regardless.
Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) said Tuesday she plans to offer an amendment ensuring some of its provisions apply to high school sports. Britt has yet to publicly declare her position on the package amid opposition from Auburn University and The University of Alabama, the largest universities in her home state.
“We don’t need to solve one problem in order to then create or leave a gap in another,” Britt said in an interview. “Additionally, I want to make sure that we still protect people’s ability to allow their programs and conferences to thrive, and I don’t think we’ve hit the mark on that just yet. But I certainly hope we can find a pathway forward.”
Britt’s fellow GOP senator from Alabama, Tommy Tuberville — the former head football coach at Auburn, University of Mississippi, Texas Tech and University of Cincinnati — has been vocal in his opposition to the bill.
Cruz and Cantwell have touted support for the legislation across two dozen conferences and more than 250 individual universities, plus organizations like the NFL Players Association and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
But many of these same groups are also expressing some qualms with the package’s current form.
One of those groups is Ackerman’s Big East conference, which consists of 11 universities including Georgetown and Villanova. Ackerman said while Big East ultimately thinks “it’s better to have the bill than not to have the bill,” several crucial sticking points remain.
That includes the fact that Cruz and Cantwell’s bill doesn’t address whether college athletes can be considered employees with bargaining rights — an omission Ackerman called “disappointing.”
The House’s college sports bill, the SCORE Act, explicitly barred college athletes from attaining employee status. It had the support of many of the industry’s largest conferences, including Big East, but failed to make it across the finish line amid opposition from hard-liners who argued the bill was too favorable to the NCAA.
“We’re trying to strike the right balance” with the remaining sticking points, said Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, one of the bill’s GOP cosponsors who has been in many of the recent meetings with Cruz and Cantwell. “There’s a lot of things going on. But I feel good about it — we’re trying to build as broad a coalition as possible.”
Cruz and Cantwell have also touted backing from Louisiana State University, pointing to its board chair Lee Mallett and president Wade Rousse as signatories on a June 1 letter expressing “enthusiastic support” for the bill.
But Mallett and Rousse later said they did not support Cruz and Cantwell’s Senate legislation. Mallett said he meant to support the House’s SCORE Act, not the Senate’s version, and Rousse said he never agreed to have his name signed onto the letter.
“While we appreciate all the efforts surrounding the Protect College Sports Act, we believe key issues remain with the legislation and we do not support the bill in its current form,” Rousse and Mallett wrote in a separate letter to the Commerce panel last week. Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy shared the letter on social media and said “LSU is right” to oppose the bill.
Supporters of the Protect College Sports Act applaud its provisions requiring agents to register with states and capping how much they can charge student athletes, along with the sections governing athlete compensation.
“The bill is not perfect, but it does address some very vital components in my mind that would improve the health of the college sports ecosystem,” West Coast Conference Commissioner Stu Jackson said in an interview.
Jackson, whose conference includes Gonzaga University and the University of Portland, said he would like to see the bill include limitations on expansion for larger conferences and a higher salary cap for student athletes, but he said talks with the Commerce panel about the bill had been “very productive.”
That’s not a view shared by multiple lobbyists representing college athletics conferences who are directly involved in talks about the bill.
“There’s not honest engagement or negotiation,” said a second lobbyist, granted anonymity to describe private discussions. “It’s really hard to get to a deal when there’s no trust, and there’s not a lot of trust right now.”
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
John Thune is eager to let GOP senators out of the Capitol and onto the campaign trail as Republicans fight to hold the Senate majority in November. First, he has to get through the next eight days.
The majority leader is hoping to fund the government, confirm dozens of President Donald Trump’s nominees and hand him new powers to punish Russia’s trading partners before letting his members leave for a five-week recess. But Trump has turned Thune’s exit strategy into a cascading political test.
The vise-like pressure campaign was playing out as Thune sat down with Blue Light News in his Capitol office Wednesday. At about the same moment, Trump was in the Oval Office insisting Thune “has the votes” to kill the Senate’s long-standing filibuster rule and pass a GOP elections bill. He went on to sow doubt as to whether he felt Thune was fit to lead the chamber’s Republicans.
“We will find out, and I will let you know,” Trump told reporters.
Unaware of Trump’s latest attacks, Thune in the interview nonetheless repeated that, no, he does not have anywhere near the votes to kill the filibuster or pass the SAVE America Act — the partisan elections bill Trump is pushing for. And he spoke frankly about the political risk Trump and other Republicans who are training their fire inward are assuming.
“I feel like we’re as well positioned as we can be,” Thune said of the midterm landscape, but “what we’ve got to do is just make the overarching narrative one that has us drawing contrast with our Democrat opponents rather than us shooting each other.” He held out hope that Trump would do just that as Election Day approaches.
The frustration with Trump’s intraparty attacks is widely shared among Thune’s colleagues but has been most frequently voiced by GOP members who are retiring or are otherwise insulated from Trump’s staggering political influence, like Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Tillis downplayed Trump’s latest attacks Wednesday, chalking it up to the “typical tug and pull” among Republicans rather than a reflection of the president’s specific views on Thune.
Thune has up to this point acted more as a lightning rod for his conference, which is a traditional role for congressional leaders. But typically they attract bolts from the other party, not their own president.
In the interview Wednesday, Thune said he and Trump “get along” even as he acknowledged that he’s bearing the brunt of the president’s frustrations with the Senate’s inability to bend reality to his whims.
“He gets obviously frustrated with me because he sees me as the person that’s the impediment to some of the things he wants to get done. But as I continually point out … I don’t make this stuff up,” he said. “Math is math, arithmetic is arithmetic. … And part of it, too, is the active role he played in some of these primaries.”
“He thinks I can wave the magic wand,” he added. “I wish it were that easy.”
What has made things more challenging in recent weeks has been the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump confidant who was able to have frank conversations with the president about the realities of the Senate.
“He was a great intermediary, whisperer, whatever you want to call it,” Thune said. “But yeah, it’s a real loss. I do think that he had the kind of relationship where he could speak bluntly, candidly, directly, and the president would accept it.”
He added there are conversations now happening about “how to better have a better line of communication” between Senate Republicans and Trump’s orbit. Just after sitting down with Blue Light News, he met with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
“We’ve got some people that can step into that role,” Thune said.
If the SAVE America Act was the only Trump-obsession Thune had to manage, it would be one thing, but the debate over the bill — which Thune supports — is also tied to Republicans’ attempt to enact a new party-line spending bill, which could include some election-related grant funding.
House Republicans managed to muscle through a $95 billion budget blueprint, but the path in the Senate is murky at best. Thune is dealing with deficit hawks who want at least part of the spending offset with cuts, defense hawks who want more Pentagon funding, and members who aren’t convinced there should be any bill at all.
But the White House is keeping the pressure on: Trump himself issued a public call for action on Truth Social Wednesday morning, and budget director Russ Vought pushed senators to move quickly in a private lunch just hours later.
Speaking in the interview shortly after the lunch, Thune said the budget blueprint Trump and his deputies are hoping to pass doesn’t currently have the votes to be approved. But he left the door open to a potential breakthrough before the end of next week while also acknowledging possible Plan Bs that could release at least some of the mounting pressure — possibly by putting pieces of the elections bill up for a vote.
“The question is, do we … trigger a vote on photo ID, put it on the floor, have a debate about it?” he said. “Those things are all kind of [things] we’re giving consideration to. But at the end of the day, does it change the outcome? I can’t see it.”
Thune also effectively ruled out holding a test vote on killing the filibuster. He warned that forcing what would essentially be symbolic votes would risk dividing Republicans while serving no practical end.
“You end up … basically for the 60 or 90 days heading into an election, fighting among Republicans, which to me seems really counterproductive, going into an election that’s pretty high-stakes,” Thune said.
Instead, Thune wants to make progress on other fronts. In addition to the sanctions bill, Thune wants to pass legislation funding the government past November — something virtually unheard of in July but something that he says is “trending in the right direction” nevertheless.
He’s also got nominees to confirm, and he’s looking to at least take an initial step on a cryptocurrency bill or college sports legislation. It’s an ambitious schedule for a month in the Senate, much less a week — especially when the president has his own priorities.
But Thune has consistently paid heed to his own constituency — the Republican senators who elected him to stay focused, put legislative wins on the board, and keep the GOP in the majority.
Thune has said he is planning to run for leader again in November, and most Senate Republicans believe he’s secure in his job.
Asked about the Oval Office comments later Wednesday evening, Thune initially danced around Trump’s equivocal assessment of whether he was “the man for the job” of leading the Senate GOP.
“That’s a decision that’s made by my colleagues,” he said.
But in subsequent comments, Thune joked that if Trump “could find somebody else to do this job, it might be a big relief.”
“It is what it is,” he added. “You just roll with it.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee has abandoned plans to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general Thursday, according to a committee spokesperson.
The decision comes as Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) continue to push the Justice Department to revise a controversial settlement agreement between President Donald Trump and the IRS. A “no” vote from either senator would effectively sink Blanche’s nomination.
The two senators met Wednesday with Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) but did not announce any breakthrough.
“Chairman Grassley works to set President Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure,” said the spokesperson, who declined to be named. “Senators Cornyn and Tillis want written assurances from the Department of Justice regarding the Trump-IRS settlement. Tomorrow’s markup is postponed as work continues to secure sufficient support in committee to favorably report [Blanche], who is highly qualified for the job.”
The meeting could still be rescheduled if Cornyn and Tillis are placated, but any delay threatens Senate GOP leaders’ plans to confirm Blanche before the chamber adjourns for its summer recess next week.
White House officials urged Senate Republicans on Wednesday to quickly adopt a spending blueprint for a narrowly focused party-line spending bill, but they struggled to quash GOP skepticism about the administration’s vision.
White House budget director Russ Vought stressed during the private lunch meeting with Senate Republicans that the next package passed under the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process should include only President Donald Trump’s most urgent priorities — particularly defense spending and aid for farmers.
Vought said Republicans should not seek to cut spending or otherwise offset the deficit impact of the tens of billions of dollars the Trump administration wants enacted, nor should they attempt to raise the debt limit.
“It should be tight,” he told reporters as he exited the lunch. “It should be for the defense needs that we need now, for the [agriculture] needs that we need now. And to get this as straight a shot to the president’s desk as possible.”
That approach comports with the $95 billion framework the House adopted last week before lawmakers there left Washington for their summer recess. But Vought and other White House officials faced pushback in the room Wednesday on a variety of issues.
Majority Leader John Thune warned afterward that he doesn’t believe he has the votes for the narrow budget resolution the Trump administration is contemplating. He said there was a disconnect between the narrow bill the White House is seeking and the political challenges it creates.
Those challenges revolve around “vote-a-rama” — a feature of the reconciliation process that allows Democrats to force a series of amendment votes that could put GOP senators in tough spots. The more committees the budget resolution “instructs” to deliver legislation, the more opportunities Democrats will have to create political mischief for Republicans.
“Some of the things that are contemplated being done in this reconciliation bill, or in this budget resolution legislation, are things that could implicate a number of committees,” Thune said. “Obviously that creates an uphill challenge in terms of trying to ensure that you have 50” votes.
Senators also aired concerns about Trump’s obsessive focus on the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act. The House blueprint contemplates including parts of that bill in the party-line package.
But Senate Budget Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said doing so in the Senate could involve more committees — and open up the range of issues Democrats would be able to force politically troublesome votes on.
“I think we all hate vote-a-rama,” Johnson added. “Some people are more sensitive to the kind of votes they have to take.”
In another complication, some Senate defense hawks want more military spending than the $60 billion House Republicans laid out in their own framework. Johnson said he and other Republicans expect to meet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later Wednesday to discuss the Pentagon’s needs.
But other Senate Republicans, such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), aren’t convinced it’s a good idea to pursue another party-line bill at all.
“It used to be we would try to figure out how we worked through some challenging problems with the minority,” she said.
Murkowski added that the Trump administration’s strategy of relying on the reconciliation process to avoid bipartisan negotiations only works if a majority of Republican senators go along with the plan.
“It’s not always guaranteed that you get 50” votes, she said.
Vought, meanwhile, leaned on the potential for yet another party-line reconciliation package to be enacted after the midterm elections as another vehicle to deliver key priorities. That could include a debt limit increase, he said, along with yet another tranche of defense cash to meet Trump’s $1.5 trillion goal for annual military spending.
The various legislative vehicles left some GOP senators scratching their hands as they left the lunch.
Asked if he had gotten clarity from Vought & Co., Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said, “‘Not really’ is the short answer.”
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