The U.S. Senate voted 77-22 on Monday to pass the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan bill setting national rules on paying college athletes, limiting how often they can transfer schools and capping their eligibility at five years.
The bill, sponsored by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and the panel’s top Democrat, Maria Cantwell of Washington, now moves to the House of Representatives, which is in recess until after the Nov. 3 midterm elections, according to the bill’s status on congress.gov. If Congress does not send the bill, known as S.4668, to President Donald Trump’s desk by the end of the year, lawmakers would have to restart the process in the next Congress, according to The Associated Press.
“It would be nice if college sports could somehow magically fix itself, but this is a matter of law, federal law, and only Congress can fix it,” Cruz said.
Trump praised the vote on Truth Social. “This is a really big deal,” he wrote. “It will not only save college sports, it will save the colleges themselves.”
The bill would codify the $2.8 billion settlement reached last year in House v. NCAA, which for the first time let Division I schools pay their athletes directly. It would keep the settlement’s $21.5 million cap on revenue each school can share with players but add up to $27.5 million more through a separate retention fund, for a total of roughly $49 million per school, according to a summary published by the Senate Commerce Committee. Schools and conferences would also gain the option to pool their television media rights.
The legislation would grant the NCAA a limited exemption from antitrust law to enforce a five-year eligibility window, beginning the year an athlete turns 19 or finishes high school, and to restrict players to one transfer during their college careers without losing a year of eligibility. Agents’ fees on athlete deals would be capped at 5%.
Conferences would be barred from growing beyond 20 teams and schools switching conferences would have to compete three years as independents first, provisions aimed at preventing a breakaway “superleague.” Coaches would be barred from leaving their schools for another job during the season, a restriction that followed Lane Kiffin’s departure from Ole Miss to LSU before last season’s College Football Playoff.
Cantwell said the bill would curb spending that has forced colleges to ask state legislatures or tap endowments meant for research. “This is about reining in the bad practices that are happening in college sports today, the runaway costs that are sending people to the state legislature asking for bailout from taxpayers to pay for sports,” she said. A report she released Sept. 15 found coaching salaries rose 370% from 2005 to 2023, alongside a 322% increase in recruiting costs.
This is a bill that essentially ensconces a system of exploitation, and it doesn’t fix the broader problems.
That verdict came from Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who organized opposition with labor and civil rights groups. Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, wrote on X that the bill “pulls the rug out from under” athletes who “put their bodies on the line every day.” The National College Players Association, the NAACP, the AFL-CIO and the Congressional Black Caucus have also opposed the measure.
Sam Ehrlich, an associate professor at Boise State University who tracks college sports litigation, said the bill functions less as protection for players than for the association that governs them. “I think the better way to frame it is ‘The Protect the NCAA Act,’” he told NPR. “It gives the NCAA significant institutional power to be able to continue to control college sports at the expense of athletes.”
The Senate rejected a Kennedy amendment that would have capped ticket prices for fans and two Booker amendments that would have limited coaches’ salaries to $5 million a year and increased compensation for athletes with catastrophic injuries. Senators did adopt a Florida Sen. Ashley Moody amendment raising the conference-size cap from 19 to 20 teams, a provision making it easier for athletes to sue over sexual assault, and a requirement that athletic departments disclose foreign government financing.
NCAA President Charlie Baker thanked senators in a statement posted by the association, saying student-athletes “worked hard to get this legislation moving” and that “there is much work left to do” as the bill moves to the House. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican and former college football coach, said the bill goes too far in setting athlete pay and should focus only on transfer and eligibility rules.
Cruz has said he hopes the House will return from recess to pass the bill before the midterms, but Republican Sen. Rand Paul and others have called that unlikely given the chamber’s earlier failure to advance similar legislation, the SCORE Act. Any House-passed changes would need to clear the Senate again before reaching Trump’s desk.