Auburn and Alabama—bitter rivals who agree on nothing—joined forces this month to kill the Protect College Sports Act, because the billion-dollar college sports machine doesn't want Congress anywhere near its television money.
The bipartisan bill, introduced in May by Sens. Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell, would regulate Name, Image and Likeness deals, protect women's and Olympic sports, and grant the NCAA limited antitrust exemptions. It would also let conferences collectively pool and negotiate their television rights—the same model the NFL uses to share revenue. That last part is what has the SEC reaching for the exit.
In a joint letter, Auburn and Alabama wrote that the bill "solves little of what genuinely challenges college athletics" and warned it would allow private-equity interests to profit from a redistribution of media-rights revenue, "pressuring institutions to involuntarily pool media rights in a way that punishes success rather than rewarding it." Translation: the SEC's massive TV deals stay right where they are.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey confirmed at SEC Media Days that conversations about breaking away from the NCAA are "real." "People have talked about that," Sankey said. "I do not believe that is a leverage point. I think that's just honest communication."
The bill includes an anti-merger rule preventing conferences generating over a billion dollars annually—the SEC and Big Ten—from breaking away to form a Super League. Essentially Sports reported that the SEC views this provision as a direct threat to its financial future.
The money stakes are enormous. The SEC and Big Ten hold the richest television contracts in college sports. Pooling those rights under the NFL-style model would redistribute revenue to smaller programs and non-revenue sports—exactly what the power conferences refuse to accept. Texas and Texas A&M released a similar joint statement opposing the bill in late June, AL.com reported, signaling that the resistance is conference-wide.
NCAA President Charlie Baker backs the bill, hoping it restores the governing body's authority after years of losses to lawsuits and patchwork state NIL laws. Baker's concern, per Essentially Sports, is that a breakaway would blow up the national championship system entirely.
Auburn athletic director John Cohen, while not a signatory to the letter, defended the unprecedented joint move. "The issues that we need, the things that need to be addressed, are very, very important to the future of the Southeastern Conference, and really to the future of intercollegiate athletics in our country," Cohen said. He offered no specifics on what alternative Auburn prefers—just that the current bill won't work.
Sankey, for his part, used the word "transparent" or "transparency" 15 times during his address, according to Arkansas Online, while insisting the SEC wants to work with Congress—on its own terms. "If Congress is going to act, we have one opportunity to get this legislation right," Sankey said.
The bill isn't without supporters. Alabama coaching legend Nick Saban testified before the Senate in favor of it. But the institutions that control the money are unified against it.
Here's the stake for ordinary Americans: these universities rake in billions in television revenue while the athletes who generate it get negotiated-down NIL deals and fans pay ever-higher ticket prices. The Protect College Sports Act isn't perfect—it hands the NCAA more power and opens new avenues for litigation, as the schools correctly note. But the SEC's answer to Congress isn't reform. It's a threat to take their ball and leave if anyone changes the game.
The question is whether Cruz and Cantwell have the stomach to push this past the most powerful lobby in college sports—or whether the SEC's billion-dollar bluff works.
