Maria Cantwell

WASHINGTON – In an era when Republicans and Democrats seldom agree on anything, especially before a high-stakes election, Sen. Maria Cantwell hopes restoring order to college sports will be the rare issue that transcends partisan divisions in Congress.

The Washington Democrat held a news conference Monday alongside Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who authored the Protect College Sports Act with her. The bipartisan bill was unveiled in May after intense negotiations between the pair, the top members of their respective parties on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which has jurisdiction over collegiate athletics.

“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 bailouts from taxpayers to pay for sports, asking people to take endowment funds that really should go to things like wheat research or AI and instead have to be spent because of the runaway arms race in sports spending,” Cantwell said, an apparent reference to Washington State University transferring $20 million to cover a shortfall in its athletics budget in March.

The legislation would give the NCAA an exemption from federal antitrust laws, letting the organization set rules governing players’ eligibility and transfers between schools without being challenged in court. It would create a nationwide standard for compensating student athletes through the so-called “NIL” deals that have proliferated since a 2021 Supreme Court ruling gave student athletes the right to profit from their “name, image and likeness.”

It would let the NCAA set and enforce transfer rules, but athletes would be guaranteed one transfer during their college careers, with additional transfers allowed only under narrow circumstances, such as when a coach leaves a school. It would also prohibit coaches from moving between schools midseason.

Since Cantwell and Cruz unveiled their compromise bill in May, it has been revised and has won the endorsements of major professional sports leagues, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, the Pac-12 and dozens of other college sports conferences.

At the news conference on Monday, Cantwell and Cruz were joined by dozens of college athletes and several prominent coaches, including Gonzaga University men’s basketball coach Mark Few. Speaking in support of the legislation, Few recalled that he had testified before Cantwell’s committee in 2021, warning that Congress needed to act to protect college sports in the new landscape of NIL payments.

“Now, five years later, I think you can sense the desperation in everybody’s voices. We really, really need help, and we need it from Congress,” Few said. “This bill might not be perfect, but it’s far and away the best thing we’ve got out there right now.”

In a brief interview after the news conference, Few told The Spokesman-Review his support for the bill isn’t about Gonzaga basketball so much as his desire to “leave the sport better than it was” after his 38-year career.

“It’s in chaos right now, and this is just a great way to get it back with some proper guidelines and proper guardrails to kind of protect all the athletes,” he said, adding that if Congress doesn’t act, “there’s going to be hard decisions made on campuses, where sports are going to have to get cut.”

Cantwell dismissed criticism from “those who support agents who want to make outrageous sums of money and prey on high school students,” referring to the cottage industry around NIL deals, but her bill has other critics.

Labor groups, the influential Congressional Black Caucus and her fellow Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, and Cory Booker, of New Jersey, have all expressed opposition, accusing the Cantwell-Cruz bill of helping the NCAA and powerful universities suppress athletes’ earnings while reaping enormous revenues from their labor. They argue collegiate athletes should be able to form a union and have collective bargaining rights.

Cruz said he expects the bill to come to the Senate floor for a vote as soon as this week, though it could be delayed until next week if a separate bill related to cryptocurrency has enough support to move forward Tuesday. Using one of the many sports metaphors deployed during the news conference, the Texas Republican described the bill’s chances in the Senate as first and goal at the 1-yard line.

The Senate will be in session for three weeks before a recess ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election. In the House, which is scheduled to recess after this week, the bill’s prospects are unclear.