https://x.com/RossDellenger/status/2059658403891274109?s=20
still haven’t fully digested this.
The bill…
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enables administrators to enforce policies related to movement by permitting only one transfer before a player must miss a season of eligibility. A second or more transfers are permitted under certain conditions, such as a head coach leaving or the elimination of an athlete’s sport.
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establishes a five-year eligibility length for college athletes and prohibits professional athletes — even those having competed internationally — from participating in college sports if they earned compensation in their pro careers beyond prize money.
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codifies portions of the NCAA’s House settlement by granting legal protection to the NCAA and College Sports Commission to enforce strict standards in prohibiting third-party NIL deals.
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remains mostly neutral on athlete employment, leaving open as a possibility for athletes to eventually be deemed employees or/and collectively bargain.
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The policing of the cap is perhaps one of the more notable additions to the legislation.
The NCAA’s settlement of three antitrust cases (commonly referred to as House) ushered in athlete compensation directly from schools to athletes but within a capped system similar to the NFL’s salary cap. Next year, each school has $21.3 million to spend on all of their athletes, but many programs, in order to achieve an advantage in a competitive recruiting environment, have redirected corporate sponsor cash to their rosters disguised as third-party NIL — compensation that doesn’t count against the cap.
Given the above-the-cap spending, football rosters have ballooned to more than $30 million and men’s basketball to more than $15 million, especially within the richest leagues: the Big Ten and SEC.
This piece of legislation stands to grant the College Sports Commission, the new enforcement entity created by the power leagues to prevent phony third-party payments, a path to enforce the cap policies without the threat of legal challenges — a significant move and one that could, if the cap isn’t increased, result in a decrease in player compensation rates.
However, in the interview with Yahoo Sports, Cantwell said language in the bill allows the conferences to increase the cap, which she described as a “key thing.”
“The cap can float,” she said. “In case the parties go back to the table (to raise the cap) — there’s dialogue about this — we want athletes to know that there is a mechanism of getting a higher percentage of the revenue share.”
A higher cap, she believes, will prevent any decrease in athlete compensation.
**“**I am ensuring athlete rights with a private right of action for NIL compensation and revenue sharing. That doesn’t exist right now,” she said. “And do I think this discussion about collective bargaining is over? No.”
The bill’s announcement comes at a divisive time as the four power conferences hotly debate how to address athlete compensation issues while also growing more apart financially.
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Super League and pooling rights
While most Division I conferences pledged their support for the Senate legislation last week — even before the bill was released — SEC and Big Ten officials withheld their position on the matter.
Those within the league expressed caution about the language specifically addressing the pooling of media rights and other concepts.
For instance, the act prevents any league earning more than $1 billion in revenue on its 2025 tax returns from merging or consolidating with another conference.
There are only two leagues that earn such revenue: the Big Ten and SEC, college sports’ behemoths who many believe are destined to eventually break away to create their own “super league.”
There is another concept targeting those two conferences: The bill offers leagues the ability — it’s an option only — to pool their media rights contracts in an effort to generate more revenue at a financially stressed time. The pooling of rights — a divisive topic among SEC and Big Ten leaders who are against the proposal — is only “voluntary,” the two senators reaffirmed to Yahoo Sports.
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While the bill does not disturb the House settlement in any way, it sets “clear rules” and “puts teeth in place to enforce those rules,” Cruz said. That includes keeping intact the College Sports Commission’s athlete arbitration path that gives players the ability to arbitrate over rejected NIL deals.
But the senators are clear on this concept: Third-party NIL compensation that the CSC deems as phony (not meeting a “valid business purpose”) can be rejected from the system.
“The approach of this bill is to give highly targeted legal protections to the enforcement of the rules that are specified in the federal statute,” Cruz said. “So, if it’s fake NIL, if it is a booster just handing an athlete a bag of cash under the table, that is breaking the rules.”
Added Cantwell: “You cannot lure or induce athletes to an institution unless you have a valid business purpose.”
