It was a congressional equivalent of a two-minute drill. But on Friday night, Senate negotiators, the Big Ten and the SEC got it done. The Protect College Sports Act is not dead after all. At least not yet.
The two conferences got the language they wanted on cap circumvention; per Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, the two leagues wanted language that “…requires school-affiliated sponsors/apparel brands, as well as multimedia rights partners, to enter into an attestation process to certify that their NIL agreements are kosher, not directed by the school and that the compensation doesn’t originate from the school.”
That, along with other concessions, got the presidents for the universities of those two conferences to finally sign on. The other two conferences that had already signed on, the Big 12 and the ACC, delivered statements to Dellenger and other reporters afterward, including Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark.
Congress Voting on College Sports Bill
It sounds like the bill could be introduced for cloture on Monday, which starts the process for a vote. Then it’s a mad scramble to get to a vote by Saturday when Congress recesses for a month. Yes, they get a month off, and you don’t because it’s hard work getting practically nothing done.
Once there’s a vote, and once it’s passed, everybody’s happy. Right? RIGHT? Well, maybe not. Just because the Senate approves the bill — and it’s a big if because any Senator can try to derail this thing — there’s still a matter of the other August body in Congress.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the US House of Representatives.
OK, so let’s Schoolhouse Rock this thing. Just because one body of Congress passes a bill doesn’t mean it becomes law. Both houses of Congress must pass a bill. More importantly, both houses of Congress must pass the SAME bill.
It’s not like the Senate passes a bill and the House of Representatives passes a bill; they both send their bills to the President, and he decides which one he wants to sign. Nope. In our bicameral legislature, both the Senate and the House must pass the SAME bill. Sounds easy, right?
You must be new here.
Theoretically, the sponsors of the bill in the Senate have communicated with their counterparts in the House, who would carry the bill through their committees to the House floor. Theoretically, the House would be aligned with what the Senate passes. That rarely happens. All it takes is one legislator to add something to the bill that materially changes it, and the whole process gets junked up.
Let’s say the House gets the bill. It likes it but doesn’t LOVE it. They want to make some adjustments. They do so. They get their version of the bill passed. So that version goes to the President for his signature, right?
Really, you gotta keep up.
Now you have two versions of the same bill. At this point, the two bills go to a conference committee. That’s a group of senators and members of Congress who sit down to hammer out a version of the bill they can both agree on. That can be a lengthy process. If and only if they’re able to reach an agreement on a bill that combines everything, it goes to the President.
Nope.
Guess what? Re-vote! Yes, that’s right, since the bill has now been changed from the versions the Senate and the House approved, both houses must vote on it again. There’s no guarantee that the new bill will be approved by both houses. If one or the other can’t pass the bill, then the bill either languishes or it dies.
Friday night was a cause for celebration. For the first time in a long time, the powers that be in college sports and Congress made progress together. It was long, arduous, and fruitful. And it is by no means done yet.
It’s why no one in college sports should be celebrating the Protect College Sports Act. It’s not law yet. And there’s still a good chance it won’t be.
