The Senate on Monday approved a sweeping remake of collegiate sports regulations in an effort to restore stability to an athletic landscape that has been upended by constant transfers, frequent shifts in conference membership and an infusion of money from wealthy boosters eager to lure top talent.
Known as the Protect College Sports Act, the bill passed by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 77 to 22, making it one of the last major pieces of business to be tackled by lawmakers before the midterm elections. It was a bid by Congress to lay out significant new rules and standards governing popular college sports that are a mainstay of American life as well as a path to an education for student athletes.
Authors of the legislation, which faces an uncertain future in the House, said aggressive congressional intervention was necessary because a series of legal rulings had sowed chaos in college sports. They warned that the current financial path of colleges and universities was unsustainable, would decrease competition and could cause schools to jettison less popular sports that were not as lucrative as football.
“It would be nice if college sports could somehow magically fix itself, but this is a matter of law, federal law, and it is only Congress that can fix it,” said Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, a chief proponent of the bill.
But it has run into fierce opposition from Black lawmakers and others who say the measure restricts opportunities for players, many of them Black, while doing little to hold down the pay or mobility of top coaches.
The legislation would limit college athletes to one transfer before they would have to sit out a season, as they had in the past before court rulings opened the transfer “portal,” spurring thousands of athletes to try to change schools each year. It also would set eligibility at five years. It would protect the right of college athletes to receive compensation for their “name, image and likeness” and institute guarantees for scholarships and health care.
The measure also would grant the N.C.A.A., the governing body of college sports, a limited antitrust exemption while remaining silent on collective bargaining by student athletes. It attempts to discourage schools from jumping from conference to conference and it imposes new restrictions on agents for athletes.
“Sports is about any given Saturday,” said Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, the lead Democratic sponsor of the bill. “It is not about whether you have a billionaire in your backyard. It is about whether you can coach and recruit and develop and maintain and have academic performance and have fairness.”
Despite the Senate approval, opponents blasted the measure as unfair to players. An amendment to cap coaching salaries at $5 million and limit their contract buyouts to one year’s salary was defeated Monday as the authors beat back a series of proposed changes. Democratic opponents also were unhappy with the lack of clarity about future collective bargaining.
“It’s a bill for the control and power of the N.C.A.A. and member institutions,” said Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey and a top opponent of the legislation. “It is not about athletes who are winning their rights, winning court cases, gaining leverage, and now are having that taken away from them.”
But resistance to the bill was no match for the major sports conferences, state schools, big-name coaches and other powerful interest groups that got behind it, including airing television spots that featured high-profile figures such as Deion Sanders, the former professional sports star who is now the head football coach at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“The colleges and the conferences and the boosters flooded this place,” said Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut another leading opponent of the bill. “It is a hard slog when the players have no money and no representation. Ultimately, this is going to be really bad for student athletes and destructive of the college sports model because these kids aren’t going to stick around very long if they are not getting paid what they are worth.”
Others said Congress should have stayed out of the fight.
“The people who oversee the post office now want to run college sports. What could go wrong?” said Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky. He said he doubted that the founding fathers ever envisioned that “Congress would one day be in charge of dictating the rules for college sports.”
With the House scheduled to be in recess until after the midterm elections, there is at present no clear path for the legislation to pass before Congress reconvenes in mid-November. Whether Republican leaders would take it up after the elections is unclear. Lame-duck agendas can be notoriously tricky. But President Trump is an enthusiastic supporter of the legislation and could put pressure on the House to act.
The measure is strongly opposed by members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the New York Democrat and minority leader who is in line to become speaker if Democrats win the House, has repeatedly expressed reservations. He called the legislation a “work in progress.”
“I share many of the concerns that have been articulated by both the Congressional Black Caucus and the N.A.A.C.P.,” Mr. Jeffries said.
Those groups contend that by limiting transfers and capping the overall amount of compensation paid to athletes, the proposal shifts the balance of power back to the schools and coaches after athletes won new rights through the courts. On the other side of the issue, some House Republicans favor explicitly declaring that student athletes are not school employees, limiting their bargaining capacity.
“They have problems on both the left and the right in the House of Representatives,” Mr. Murphy said. “We are going to continue to fight this bill.”
The post Senate Resoundingly Approves Sweeping College Sports Measure appeared first on New York Times.
