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{"id":26584,"date":"2026-07-28T20:32:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T20:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/big-ten-sec-are-on-the-clock-as-new-college-athletics-bill-is-circulated\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T20:32:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T20:32:41","slug":"big-ten-sec-are-on-the-clock-as-new-college-athletics-bill-is-circulated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/big-ten-sec-are-on-the-clock-as-new-college-athletics-bill-is-circulated\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Ten, SEC are on the clock as new college athletics bill is circulated"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The bipartisan leaders of the Senate Commerce Committee are making changes to their big college sports overhaul in a bid to garner support from the nation\u2019s two <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/newsletters\/politico-influence\/2026\/07\/06\/lobbying-battle-intensifies-over-college-sports-bill-00988000\" target=\"_blank\"><u>most powerful athletic conferences<\/u><\/a> as they look to build Republican support ahead of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2026\/06\/10\/congress\/cruz-sets-aggressive-timeline-on-college-sports-bill-00956923\" target=\"_blank\"><u>potential vote<\/u><\/a> on the Senate floor.<\/p>\n<p>Chair <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/175665\" data-person-id=\"175665\">Ted Cruz<\/a> (R-Texas) and Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51160\" data-person-id=\"51160\">Maria Cantwell<\/a> (D-Wash.), the ranking member, made several concessions to the Big Ten and Southeastern Conferences in the latest draft of their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/05\/20\/score-act-college-sports-trump-00929029\" target=\"_blank\"><u>Protect College Sports Act<\/u><\/a>. They include protections against certain legal challenges and a new $20 million pool of funds that schools can use for retaining athletes, according to three people close to the negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s unclear whether the changes will be good enough to win over the two conferences. A senior Commerce Committee staffer asked the conferences to schedule a call with their general counsels and staff \u201cASAP\u201d to discuss the text and gave them a 9 a.m. Wednesday deadline to decide whether they support the latest version of the bill, according to an email reviewed by Blue Light News.<\/p>\n<p>Two lobbyists directly engaged on the bill said Tuesday that weeks of negotiations had not meaningfully addressed a litany of concerns the SEC and the Big Ten had with earlier versions of the bill.<\/p>\n<p>The conferences demanded, for instance, that a provision allowing universities to jointly negotiate their media rights make clear that schools cannot be coerced into participating. The updated text includes a provision shielding schools who do not participate in media pooling from potential litigation, according to a copy of the draft obtained by Blue Light News.<\/p>\n<p>The bill, however, leaves out another key demand of the conferences: a provision clarifying that postseason tournaments and contests would be excluded from media pooling.<\/p>\n<p>It also retains a prohibition on conferences with over $700 million in revenue participating in mergers and acquisitions, which would impact both power conferences along with the Atlantic Coast Conference. That threshold was brought down from an earlier $1 billion limit, but the SEC and the Big Ten had hoped to see it stripped from the bill altogether.<\/p>\n<p>The new text also includes a newly added section titled the \u201cIgnite HBCUs Sports and Media Act.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That section, which is still in flux, deals with \u201cextraneous topics of broadband,\u201d per the email sent to the conferences on Tuesday. The $20 million athlete retention pool also remains subject to change \u201cas we discuss how to align the proper incentive for spending on women\u2019s NIL,\u201d according to the email.<\/p>\n<p>Cruz <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2026\/07\/16\/congress\/college-sports-update-01001276\" target=\"_blank\"><u>remains determined to get the bill onto the floor<\/u><\/a> before the Senate heads out of town for a scheduled recess next week. But time is running short, and he and Cantwell still need to win over wary senators on both sides of the aisle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The bipartisan leaders of the Senate Commerce Committee are making changes to their big college sports overhaul in a bid to garner support from the nation\u2019s two most powerful athletic conferences as they look to build Republican support ahead of a potential vote on the Senate floor. Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Maria Cantwell [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}