The yearslong, multimillion-dollar effort to get Congressional action on college sports may soon come to fruition. If the Protect College Sports Act passes, it could dramatically change the future of the industry by freezing much of the tumult of the last several years.
At least, that’s the plan.
The Big Ten and SEC threw their support behind the Senate’s bill last week, a key hurdle for the senators driving the legislation forward. They’ll hope for a Senate vote this week before the body’s monthlong recess, but that may be difficult to squeeze in despite Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on Wednesday filing for cloture, a procedural step toward a vote. More hurdles await in the House of Representatives after the recess should the bill pass the Senate, but the possibility of getting something into law is closer than it’s ever been.
But what’s actually in the bill? Everything from transfer restrictions to conference expansion caps to coach-departure limitations to a supposedly harder cap on revenue sharing. There’s also a clause about the date of the football national championship game.
If you haven’t been in the legislative weeds over the past few months, here’s a rundown of key provisions that would become law if the bill passes as it’s currently written.
Limiting conference expansion and a Super League
After the mad rush of conference realignment that reshaped college sports geography a few years ago, this bill would amend the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 to freeze almost all of what’s in place. Conferences that report more than $700 million in revenue (aka the Power 4: the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC) would be limited to 19 members, and any team in a Power 4 league for the previous five years could not move to another. That means any Power 4 team looking to change conferences would be required to operate as an independent program for five years before making a move.
The Big Ten has 18 teams, the ACC has 17 and the SEC and Big 12 have 16 each. This bill seems to allow realistic additions only of Notre Dame, UConn or a Group of 6 team. It also makes it much harder for Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina or anyone else in the ACC to leave the conference after FSU and Clemson sued amid an exploration of that possibility just a few years ago.
The bill also prevents any outside entity from consolidating schools to create a new conference or association, aka a Super League.
Before winning the national title, Indiana won the Big Ten championship last season. At 18 members, the Big Ten is the largest Power 4 conference, and the Protect College Sports Act would cap Power 4 conference membership at 19 teams. (Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
The return of transfer restrictions
The PCSA would curtail the unlimited transfers currently in place. Undergraduate players would be allowed one free transfer without having to sit out a year, while graduate players would remain free to transfer without limit. This would take the rules back to the short-lived change introduced by the NCAA in 2021, before the courts opened up unlimited transfers. All players would be able to transfer in the event of a head coaching change or misconduct-related circumstances.
So while there would no longer be unlimited transfers for everyone, there would still be many paths to transfer, especially in the new world of five years of eligibility, which would also be enshrined as law with the age-based clock. The bill additionally gives the NCAA antitrust protection to enforce transfer rules, including tampering.
Increasing revenue sharing, while adding a harder cap
The money opened up for athletes by the House v. NCAA settlement (around $21 million this year) would increase by way of a new $22.5 million “retention fund” limit to be used on a school’s current players, plus another $5 million capped pool exclusively for women’s sports and nonrevenue sports, totaling nearly $50 million per year.
In an attempt to close spending loopholes and to create a harder cap, the bill also adopts the House settlement’s definition of an “associated entity” and requires school multimedia rights holders and third parties to provide signed certification that a school is not the source of NIL compensation to the athlete. This was the final change that got the SEC and Big Ten on board.
The bill also preempts the various state laws on NIL, eligibility and transfers that had complicated the NCAA’s pursuit of a national standard for a level playing field.
A provision of the Protect College Sports Act would prevent coaches hired as head coaches by a different school — such as Lane Kiffin at LSU in 2025 — from acting on behalf of that school until the later of the end of that team’s season or the end of the season of the team the coach is leaving. (Tyler Kaufman / Getty Images)
Preventing in-season coaching moves
Coaches leaving for other jobs before a season ends is nothing new in college football, but Lane Kiffin’s acceptance of the LSU job before Ole Miss’ College Football Playoff run drew so much attention that it made its way to Congress. The bill would prevent any Football Bowl Subdivision coach from participating in head-coaching duties at a new school before the conclusion of that team’s season or the season of the coach’s prior team, whichever occurs later. The provision has been colloquially referred to as the “Lane Kiffin Rule” by people involved.
It’s not only about head coaches leaving. The bill qualifies “any individual” who serves as football personnel accepting a head coaching job elsewhere. That means former Oregon coordinators Will Stein and Tosh Lupoi wouldn’t have been able to do any work for Kentucky or Cal, respectively, until Oregon’s season ended. Technically, these coaches can accept a new job, but they cannot recruit, make roster decisions, supervise staff or even publicly represent the new school in a football capacity until after the teams’ final games. Penalties for violations of this include a one-season suspension and potentially more.
Could this slow down the college coaching carousel to put it on an NFL-like timeline? That’s the idea, but it dramatically squeezes the timeline for certain new head coaches, given the early signing period in December and the lone transfer portal, which opens in early January.
An option to pool conference media rights
The bill gives conferences the right to pool all their TV rights into one package if it includes at least 75 percent of the teams in the FBS, along with antitrust protection under the Sports Broadcasting Act, which currently covers only pro sports.
You may have seen Texas Tech megabooster Cody Campbell’s commercials last fall calling for this change to the SBA. The SEC and Big Ten have made clear they have no interest in pooling their rights with other conferences, but this provision gives everyone the option to do so. Not coincidentally, the Big Ten, SEC and Notre Dame combined make up 25.4 percent of the FBS, enough to veto any such pooling.
If there is some new joint entity involving at least 75 percent of the FBS, there are additional requirements for schools to play a certain number of “historic rivals” within that new entity, depending on whether they were previously conference or out-of-conference games.
Moving up the national championship? Not quite
One line near the end of the bill raised some eyebrows, stating that the football postseason should “conclude not later than January 8 of any year, to the extent practicable.”
This clause is nonbinding. Coaches have called for a similar endpoint, and College Football Playoff staff have spoken with Congressional staff hoping to change this provision. A Republican Commerce Committee aide noted to The Athletic that it doesn’t preempt current media rights contracts. The current CFP deal runs through 2031, and national title sites through the 2029 season have been announced. So this is not expected to have any effect, at least anytime soon.
Capping agent fees
The bill would add NIL deals under the Sports Agent Responsibility and Trust Act to cap agent NIL fees at 5 percent of the value of the endorsement contract, while also limiting agency contracts that last beyond the player’s college eligibility. Agents must register within a state before representing a player for an endorsement deal and cannot make “false, deceptive, or fraudulent representation as an athlete agent.”
The NCAA shall also maintain a publicly available searchable database of registered agents, and it would have the ability to decertify or fine agents for violations. There are additional requirements for what must be written out in an endorsement deal.
Athlete employment
There is just one line addressing athlete employment, stating, “This title is neutral on, and does nothing to alter, employee or non-employee status for student athletes.” This topic was a key issue that doomed the previous SCORE Act, which would’ve deemed them non-employees and therefore lacked Democratic support. This bill leaves the matter unresolved, with the hope of garnering enough Democratic support to finally pass a bill through Congress.
It’s the last best chance to do so before the midterm elections in November.
