Cruz and Cantwell strike bipartisan deal to rein in college sports chaos

Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell have agreed on a sweeping bipartisan bill to impose federal order on college athletics, a system both lawmakers say is careening toward financial ruin under unchecked NIL spending, transfer portal abuse, and a legal landscape that has stripped the NCAA of its ability to enforce basic rules.

The legislation, called the Protect College Sports Act, is set for introduction when the Senate returns to session next week. Its provisions read like a direct response to nearly every grievance voiced by coaches, athletic directors, and conference officials over the past two years: caps on agent fees, restrictions on midseason coaching departures, limits on transfers, antitrust protections for the NCAA, and a prohibition on the SEC and Big Ten forming a breakaway superleague.

The bill's arrival follows a Friday roundtable at the White House where President Donald Trump hosted college sports figures, including SEC and Big Ten commissioners, to discuss what he called the "crazy things" plaguing the system. Trump signed two executive orders aimed at finding a unified solution and had previously launched a Presidential Committee on college sports, chaired by New York Yankees president Randy Levine and vice-chaired by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. That committee's recommendations fed directly into the Cruz-Cantwell framework, as OutKick reported.

A system spending itself into oblivion

The financial picture alone explains the urgency. College football programs are now spending north of $40 million per roster this season, nearly double the $20.5 million figure that was supposed to function as a soft cap. Nobody is enforcing the number because nobody has the legal authority to do so.

Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko laid out the math in blunt terms during SEC spring meetings at the Hilton SanDestin Resort in Miramar Beach, Florida, on Tuesday:

"If we don't find a way to create some level of regulation in the market, a lot of people are going to go bankrupt pretty quick. We're two and a half years away from having an NIL budget that's greater than the TV revenue for our entire university."

That is not a small-conference coach talking. That is the head coach at Texas A&M, one of the wealthiest athletic programs in the country, warning that the current trajectory leads to insolvency.

Meanwhile, Senator Cantwell pointed to the human cost beyond the balance sheets. Thousands of men's and women's athletic roster slots have been cut. A hundred athletic programs have been eliminated. The arms race at the top is hollowing out opportunity everywhere else.

What the Protect College Sports Act would do

The bill is dense and far-reaching. It prohibits third-party NIL deals and grants legal protection to the NCAA and a new College Sports Commission against antitrust lawsuits, a direct answer to the litigation that has paralyzed enforcement. Athletes would retain the option to collectively bargain or be deemed employees, but the wild-west bidding environment would face real guardrails for the first time.

On transfers, the bill allows one unrestricted move without a sit-out period. Additional transfers may carry consequences. A five-year calendar eligibility clock would replace the current open-ended system. Professional athletes, including G-League and NBA players, would be barred from competing in college sports.

The bill also tackles tampering head-on. Associations would gain limited antitrust protection to prohibit inducements. Agents would be required to register, and their NIL payouts would be capped at five percent.

One provision has already earned its own nickname. The so-called "Lane Kiffin Rule" forbids coaches from leaving for another job until the season concludes and bars schools from hiring coaches before seasons end. Anyone who followed the carousel of midseason departures in recent years understands the frustration behind that provision.

For smaller conferences like the Mountain West and Conference USA, the bill includes a voluntary option to pool media rights, but only if 75 percent of the 135-plus FBS schools agree. The SEC and Big Ten, whose massive television contracts give them little incentive to share revenue, would each have to consent separately before any pooling could proceed. And the bill explicitly forbids the two mega-conferences from merging into a superleague, a scenario that has haunted the rest of college athletics.

The legislation also includes post-eligibility medical coverage for athletes and whistleblower protections against retaliation. There is no salary cap, but schools must stay within the guidelines established by the House settlement, the federal court-approved $2.8 billion deal that opened the door to schools directly paying athletes.

Why previous efforts failed

This is not the first attempt at a congressional fix. The SCORE Act, pushed primarily by Republicans, never made it to the House floor. AP News reported that Cruz and Cantwell had been working to break the legislative logjam after that earlier effort stalled. The National Black Caucus and the NAACP came out against the SCORE Act last week, and congressional leaders from SEC footprint states pushed back on the legislation.

The SEC and Big Ten themselves had complained about lack of access to the SCORE Act's text, even as they publicly hoped it would advance. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey hinted Tuesday that he knew certain elements of the new bill but had not seen the actual language.

Cruz framed the new bill as broader than just an NIL fix. Breitbart reported Cruz calling it "a stability bill, not just an NIL bill." His full statement went further:

"College sports are at a breaking point. Fans can see their favorite teams being hollowed out by transfer chaos, fake NIL bidding wars, eligibility lawsuits, and a system that allows the richest programs to keep pulling away. The Protect College Sports Act is a bipartisan plan to restore order. Student athletes can profit from their name, image, and likeness, but college sports still needs real rules, competitive balance, rivalries, and a true connection to education. This bill protects athletes and fans and keeps college sports from becoming a two-conference minor league."

Cantwell, for her part, described the crisis in terms that echoed concerns about preserving women's and Olympic sports, a priority that has repeatedly faced resistance in the Senate from different angles.

"We're seeing thousands of men's and women's athletic roster slots and a hundred athletic programs being cut. Collegiate athletics is a hallmark for human development. Let's not ruin it with out-of-control chaos. This bill puts new tools and new rules on the table to rein in runaway costs while still preserving NIL, revenue sharing, and women and Olympic sports."

The Trump factor

President Trump's involvement dates to last summer, when he first waded into the college sports regulation debate. The White House roundtable on Friday brought together commissioners, coaches, and conference officials in a visible show of executive-branch interest. The Presidential Committee chaired by Levine and DeSantis produced recommendations that both senators incorporated into their bill, and committee members signed a letter urging Congress to act.

Trump's two executive orders represent an unusual degree of presidential engagement on a matter traditionally left to the NCAA and the courts. But the NCAA's enforcement authority has been shredded by litigation, and the courts have produced a patchwork of rulings that left nobody in charge. The Washington Examiner reported on the bipartisan deal as an effort to "save college sports", language that would have sounded melodramatic five years ago but now tracks with what coaches like Elko are saying publicly.

What comes next, and what remains unclear

The bill heads to the Senate floor with genuine bipartisan backing, but significant questions remain. Whether the SEC and Big Ten will support or resist the legislation, particularly the superleague ban and the media rights pooling framework, could determine its fate. Both conferences wield enormous political influence, and their television contracts give them strong incentives to preserve the status quo.

The House timeline is unknown. The SCORE Act died before reaching the floor, and there is no guarantee this bill fares differently in the lower chamber. The opposition from the National Black Caucus and NAACP to the earlier legislation signals that any college sports reform will face political headwinds beyond the usual conference turf wars.

And then there is the enforcement question. The bill envisions a College Sports Commission with antitrust protections, but the details of how that body would operate, and how it would handle the inevitable legal challenges, remain to be seen once the full text circulates. Newsmax noted that Cruz and Cantwell are looking to break a congressional logjam that has persisted for years.

For now, the numbers tell the story clearly enough. Programs are spending $40 million on rosters against a supposed $20.5 million guideline. Coaches at flagship universities are warning about bankruptcy. Hundreds of programs and thousands of roster spots have vanished. The system that was supposed to empower athletes has instead enriched agents and the richest programs while gutting opportunity for everyone else.

Congress has a bill. The White House is engaged. The question is whether Washington can move faster than the chaos it created by standing still.