Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz is hopeful the Senate will be able to vote this month on his bipartisan college athletics legislation as he makes “minor modifications” to win support.
The Texas Republican said Wednesday he has been meeting throughout this week with “several dozen” commissioners and university presidents to solicit feedback on the bill he introduced last month with the Commerce Committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington.
“We continue to make significant progress,” he said, declining to get into the “active discussions” around negotiations.
“I believe we will vote on it this month,” Cruz added.
Cruz and Cantwell’s Protect College Sports Act would establish a federal rule book for college athletics by enacting new policies for student-athlete transfers, banning coaches from moving schools mid-season and enshrining certain “name, image and likeness” protections in law.
Time is running out to schedule a floor vote in July, however, and it remains unclear how much work needs to be done to build consensus in the next two weeks.
A person granted anonymity to share private discussions said Senate Majority Leader John Thune has expressed interest in moving the bill to the floor once it can get 60 votes. But members in both parties have misgivings — including Democrats concerned about student athlete labor protections as well as some Republicans attuned to concerns from major college athletic conferences.
Cantwell, in an interview Thursday, said there’s a “possibility for sure” the bill could land on the Senate floor by the end of the month, while acknowledging there was still some work to do.
“I think right now we have a bill that’s like really in the middle and then there’s people on both sides trying to make change,” she said. “And I think we’ll have to see what we can do that still preserves that agreement but grows the votes.”
Two lobbyists actively engaged in talks around the bill, who were granted anonymity to comment on private conversations, said the legislation is far from ready for a floor vote, adding that the Commerce Committee has not made substantial progress on winning over key players in college sports.
Several universities and conferences — including Louisiana State University, the University of Alabama and Auburn University — have reiterated in recent days that they believe the Cruz-Cantwell bill still requires substantial changes like clarifying liability protections for schools and closing potential loopholes around non-NIL payments for student-athletes.
The bill has also faced strong headwinds as the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference — the two largest college athletics conferences in the country — have pushed back on a provision aimed at allowing conferences to pool their media rights, insisting the bill clarify that any such provision is entirely voluntary.
Several major conferences were at one time more enthusiastic about the rival proposal in the House known as the SCORE Act, which would offer strong antitrust protections and preempt state NIL laws. But that bill stalled amid opposition from GOP hard-liners and others, emboldening Cruz and Cantwell to forge ahead with their own plan.
Both measures, however, have faced pushback from the Congressional Black Caucus, which has continued to vow to boycott any college sports legislation amid efforts by GOP-led states to redraw congressional maps across the South.
