Senate votes to move forward with Protect College Sports Act

The Senate on Tuesday voted to advance the Protect College Sports Act, an NCAA-backed, bipartisan bill aimed at setting federal guidelines for college sports amid a rapidly shifting landscape.

The measure advanced on a 74-24 vote; it needed 60 votes to proceed. Timing on a vote for final passage in the Senate is unclear at the time. The legislation would still need to pass the House if it makes it through the Senate.

The Protect College Sports Act is the latest attempt to set a national standard for the rules of college sports. In recent years, a variety of issues — ranging from eligibility to compensation — have been challenged in state courts.

Decisions and temporary injunctions have quickly changed NCAA rules that had been in place for decades, paving the way for athletes to transfer schools freely or be compensated by their schools directly.

The Protect College Sports Act aims to set a national standard regarding issues that include years of eligibility, how often players can transfer, compensation and more.

The bill would also grant the NCAA an antitrust exemption and prevent future legal challenges over such rules. Professional leagues, such as the NFL and NBA, have antitrust exemptions. But athletes in those leagues collectively bargain over the rules.

The legislation got support from both sides of the aisle after it was introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., earlier this year. The NCAA has lobbied Congress for years to pass a sweeping federal law after numerous state rulings have transformed the nature of college sports, particularly men’s and women’s basketball and football.

“This bill might not be perfect, but it’s far, far away the best thing we got out there right now,” Gonzaga men’s basketball coach Mark Few said Monday alongside Cruz and Cantwell.

The Protect College Sports Act also has numerous critics, including the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP. One of its most outspoken critics has been Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

“This bill protects the billions of dollars that coaches and sports industry executives are making over the suppression of compensation for some of the most highly valued athletes in the world,” Murphy told reporters Monday. “What we’re being asked to do is to basically allow colleges and conferences and the NCAA to illegally collude.”

Proponents and detractors of the legislation have been jockeying for position publicly. Cruz recently appeared on ESPN’s “College GameDay,” a popular college football pregame show, to stump for the measure. Murphy offered a rebuttal on Stephen A. Smith’s “Straight Shooter” podcast.

Meanwhile, advocates for athletes have pointed to other issues with the bill, including how it could potentially create a loophole for schools to escape accountability for a variety of violations, including sexual abuse.

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