College sports reforms could make headway in the Republican Party-controlled Congress, with Senator Ted Cruz as an NCAA ally

On By Pranco

Ben Nuckols
| Associated press

Washington – The NCAA’s years-long effort to get lawmakers to address numerous problems in college sports could finally pay off in the new Republican-controlled Congress.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who is poised to take over as chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee, recently said a college sports bill will be a top priority, accusing Democrats of dragging their feet on the necessary reforms. He still needs Democratic support for any bill that meets the necessary 60-vote threshold in the Senate, and that means a compromise with lawmakers more concerned about the well-being of athletes than giving the NCAA more authority.

“It’s clear that the situation is much more manageable if Republicans are in control,” said Tom McMillen, a former Democratic congressman who played college basketball and for years led an association of Division I athletic directors. from the NCAA, this is kind of an ideal scenario for them.”

What’s at stake?

Cruz and others want to preserve at least parts of the amateur athlete model at the heart of college sports, which has generated billions of dollars in college scholarships and fueled decades of U.S. success in the Olympics.

The broad outlines of a bill have been debated for years, with those conversations influenced by millions of dollars in lobbying by the NCAA and the wealthiest athletic conferences. The NCAA has found a more receptive audience on Capitol Hill since Charlie Baker, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, took over as president in March 2023.

There is some bipartisan consensus that Congress should grant the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption that would allow it to set rules for college sports without the constant threat of lawsuits, and that national standards for name, image compensation and the Similarity of Athletes (NIL) are needed to override a patchwork of state laws.

Those are the key elements of the legislation that Cruz has supported for more than a year. Staffers from his office and those of fellow Republican Jerry Moran of Kansas and Democrats Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Cory Booker of New Jersey spent months negotiating a bill to be introduced in the current divided Congress, but those talks stalled.

Dual support key

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the outgoing chair of the Commerce Committee, has been working to advance college sports reform since 2019 but has struggled to reach consensus on legislation. Still, she agrees with Cruz on at least one issue that Congress could solve — one she saw playing out in her home state with the dissolution of the Pac-12 Conference.

“Right now, large schools and their supporters are competing against smaller schools. We need a predictable national NIL standard that ensures a level playing field for college athletes and schools,” Cantwell said in a statement to The Associated Press.

A Supreme Court decision in 2021 cleared the way for athletes to receive NIL compensation, and now a pending $2.8 billion settlement of multiple antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA has set the tone, not just for damages paid to former athletes for the NIL money they could not get. earn, but schools share the revenue with their current and future college stars.

In addition to these changes that the NCAA was forced to make by the courts, the organization has expanded health benefits for athletes and provided new scholarship guarantees. Those new rules went into effect on August 1, and the NCAA argues that they obviate the need for Congress to mandate such benefits.

“We believe that members of Congress will see the results of these positive changes in the next session, and our goal is to build on them and address the remaining issues that only Congress can address,” said Tim Buckley, senior manager of the NCAA. vice president of external affairs.

Tantalizing employment issue

The NCAA’s main goal — and one that seems achievable under Republican leadership — is “to prevent student-athletes from being forced to become employees of their schools,” Buckley said.

There are several ongoing efforts by athletes seeking the opportunity to unionize, with at least one already in court.

The NCAA has sent athletes to Capitol Hill to tell Congress they don’t want employee status, and some Democrats who previously supported athlete employment have recognized the potential downsides. These include drastic cuts to women’s and Olympic sports that could be necessary for universities to meet their payroll obligations, and financial complications for athletes whose scholarships and other benefits would become taxable.

“For example, historically black colleges and universities came together and said, ‘If you force us to treat student-athletes as employees, it will cause us to cancel most of our athletic programs.’ That would be a disastrous outcome,” Cruz said in September during an appearance at Texas A&M University.

Still, overly broad anti-employment language in any bill could jeopardize its chances of passage. Democrats are reluctant to pass legislation seen as too friendly to the NCAA. Booker, a moderate on athlete employment and a former football player at Stanford, nevertheless emphasized in a statement that he would only support an athlete-friendly bill.

“For too long, the college sports system has placed power and profit over the rights and well-being of college athletes. And while we have made hard-won progress in recent years, there is still more to do,” said Booker. “My advocacy on their behalf will continue in the next Congress.”

Cruz could also face pressure from his own side of the aisle. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who spent more than two decades as a Division I football coach, has called on Congress to impose penalties on players who break NIL contracts.

While Cruz understands the need for compromise, he plans to use the power he has to advance his priorities — and to some extent those of the NCAA.

“As chairman I can organize hearings. I am in charge of every hearing that the Commerce Committee holds,” Cruz said on a recent episode of his weekly podcast. “I can decide which bills get flagged and which don’t, and it gives you the opportunity to drive an agenda that is just qualitatively different.”