The NCAA and conferences scored a huge win in the Senate on Monday after spending more than five years — and a whole lot of money — pushing Congress to regulate college sports.
The Protect College Sports Act passed 77-22, immediately moving the focus to whether it can pass the House next. Democrats. Sens. Two Republicans, 19 Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, voted against the bill. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) were the lead co-sponsors of a bill that would provide the NCAA and conferences antitrust protection to set rules for athlete compensation, eligibility and the transfer portal.
Proponents say that legal shield is necessary to rein in the free spending of the name, image and likeness, or NIL, era, during which athletes are receiving over-the-table money from schools for the first time. The bill’s loudest opponents, however, say it’s an unfair check on athlete earning power, particularly in the high-revenue sports of football and men’s basketball.
But the PCSA also deals with far more than compensation, even if those sections have naturally stirred the most public debate. The bill permits schools to explore pooling their television rights to sell as a massive package in the future, amending the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. It also attempts to limit further conference realignment, among many other regulations. Because of how sprawling the bill is, lobbyists and aides predict a complicated path in the House, which is not scheduled to be in session again until after the midterms.
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The bill has faced pushback from major labor organizations, the Congressional Black Caucus and a few Senate Democrats. Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Cory Booker of New Jersey, two of the main opponents to the bill, have framed the PCSA as a labor and civil rights issue, arguing that athletes should have a real say in any negotiations over congressional legislation. But the bill reached at least 70 yeses in every vote in the Senate, signaling that a handful of Democrats were willing to break with the labor community — most notably the AFL-CIO — to support a bill backed by President Donald Trump.
The PCSA has four Democratic co-sponsors in the Senate: Cantwell, Chris Coons of Delaware, Peter Welch of Vermont and John Hickenlooper of Colorado. On the Republican side, Cruz was joined by Sens. Eric Schmitt of Missouri, who was key to pushing the bill through the Senate, and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and John Hoeven of North Dakota.
The late blitz of amendments, including a vote for seven of them Monday night, perhaps previewed the fights to come in the House.
The Senate adopted an amendment from Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) for athletes to retain the right to sue in state court over abuse, fraud and safety failures. It then adopted an amendment from Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) that would require schools to disclose to Congress any money received from foreign governments, state-owned companies or sovereign wealth funds for athletics.
And then, by voice vote, the Senate agreed to an amendment from Sens. Ashley Moody (R-Florida) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) to raise the maximum number of teams in a power conference from 19 to 20.
Not adopted? An amendment from Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana), a vocal critic of the PCSA, that would have capped ticket prices. An amendment from Booker to raise a catastrophic injury fund from $100 million to $200 million. (It needed 51 votes and received 50). Plus another amendment from Booker to restrict pay and job movement for coaches much like the PCSA would for athletes. That failed 52-47.
Last week, Booker and Murphy filed an amendment to cap coaches’ salaries at $5 a million a year, a way to highlight their view that athletes are being shortchanged by the PCSA. And for much of the last month, Moody has pushed for tweaks to how the PCSA would regulate future conference realignment, pulling a number of Florida politicians into her effort. Moody would like to see schools such as Florida State and Miami have the flexibility to switch leagues in the near future if the opportunity arises.
“For every Ashley Moody in the Senate, there are five in the House, if not more,” a Republican House aide told The Washington Sun. “There are going to be a lot of opinions on this thing.”
Some aides are expecting the House to rehash key issues from the SCORE Act, a Republican-backed bill that tried (and failed) to regulate college sports in 2025. Unlike the PCSA, the SCORE Act explicitly said college athletes could not be classified as employees, something Republican House members could raise again, according to multiple aides.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise suggested this summer that the issue could derail the bill, telling Politico: “For the House to be able to take anything up, you got to prevent employment status of the student athletes.”
Two Republicans — Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio and Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan — recently introduced a bill that would prohibit college teams from offering more than 20% of their roster spots to international athletes. That could make international athletes another pet topic for some Republicans as lobbying shifts to the House.
On the other side of the aisle, Democrats have typically stayed in lockstep with the CBC when it comes to college sports, though the Senate votes raise the question of whether some might peel off to support the PCSA.
All of this, though, is only relevant if the House gives the PCSA the time of day. Cruz has told multiple reporters that the House could return before the midterms to take up the bill, though there’s skepticism in the House that will happen. If it doesn’t, the bill could still be a lame duck item in the House, a complicated process in itself. A tall hurdle was cleared Monday, especially since no college sports bill had even reached a full Senate or House floor vote in recent years. But many still remain.
This story has been updated to include the final vote breakdown.
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