Congress can't pass a budget or address the cost-of-living crisis crushing working Americans, but 77 senators just voted to federalize college athletics and hand the NCAA antitrust protections — locking in the pay-for-play NIL cartel that's already draining institutional budgets funded by students and taxpayers.
The Protect College Sports Act, sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., would cap the revenue colleges can share with their own players, restrict transfer rights, let conferences pool television media money, and grant the NCAA limited antitrust exemptions. The bill cleared a procedural vote Thursday with 77 votes and could pass the Senate as early as next week.
Here's the bipartisan deal in plain terms: Washington inserts itself into college sports to protect the institutional class — conferences, the NCAA, athletic departments — from the consequences of the very system they created. Name-image-likeness payments have produced football rosters with $30 million payrolls, and a Cantwell-issued report showed a $519.9 million increase in institutional and government support of athletic programs between 2015 and 2025 among Power Four schools. Who pays that bill? Students and taxpayers.
Craig Bohl, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, pitched the bill as putting
