Who Does the Protect College Sports Act Protect?
Students debate the merits of a bill to regulate student athlete eligibility, transfers and compensation.
Editor’s note: In this Future View, students discuss collegiate athletics and the Protect College Sports Act.
End Revenue Sharing
Name, image and likeness deals in collegiate athletics have transformed athlete compensation into a Wild West of unevenly regulated sponsorships and transfer portals. Congress must decide whether to treat collegiate athletes as students who participate in an education-based amateur athletic system or as employees of the institutions they represent on the field. As a Division I athlete, I believe Congress is right to codify name, image and likeness compensation but must eliminate revenue sharing between athletes and universities.
Direct compensation removes the focus of an undergraduate education as the core principle of collegiate athletics. While the Protect College Sports Act attempts to distinguish collegiate athletics from professional sports legally, any system that allows universities to pay players for athletic performance creates another level of professional competition. Striking the revenue-sharing provision in the pending legislation would help re-establish an emphasis on the student aspect of student athlete. It would also help prevent nonrevenue sports from being cut to remain below the revenue-sharing cap, further protecting amateur athletic competition.
NCAA athletes have competed for more than a century under athletic scholarships, enabling them to obtain a degree while competing at a high level. But when universities directly pay athletes to play, those students have an incentive to dedicate time and energy to their sports and neglect their studies. Amateur athletic competition has been a staple of American society since the late 19th century, and Congress has the opportunity now to preserve the place of college athletics in that tradition.
—Danny Auffant, U.S. Naval Academy, political science
Balancing Exit and Voice
College sports have become a national market governed by an increasingly fragmented set of rules. A national framework therefore has a strong rationale. But uniformity alone doesn’t make a system fair.
American economist Albert Hirschman argued that people facing an unsatisfactory institution possess two basic forms of power: exit and voice. The Protect College Sports Act succeeds because it balances the two.
The bill would limit athletes’ ability to exit by establishing national rules for transfers and eligibility. Athletes would receive one transfer without losing eligibility, while a second transfer would generally require sitting out a year. The legislation would strengthen their voice through representation. Current or recent athletes would make up at least one-third of athletic-association bodies with rule-making authority, and an athlete ombudsman would help resolve disputes.
The current rules giving athletes the right to earn money from their name, image and likeness aren’t the same as giving them power over the institutions governing their careers. College sports are a national industry and can’t be governed by fifty competing rule books. A federal framework makes sense. Its legitimacy, however, rests on a simple principle: When Congress limits athletes’ ability to exit, it must ensure that their voice inside the system is real.
—Wesley Tzeng, National Chengchi University (Taiwan), money and banking
Beware the Antitrust Exemption
Congress shouldn’t pass the Protect College Sports Act, because the legislation would heighten the ability of the NCAA and university athletic programs to exploit college athletes.
Several players groups have publicly opposed the bill—and for good reason. The National College Players Association called it “an unprecedented federal assault on college athletes” that subverts their rights and gives special immunity to the NCAA. The bill would grant the NCAA an antitrust exemption, giving it power to regulate transfers and eligibility and cap how much money athletes can earn through revenue sharing. Meantime it would take away student athletes’ ability to use the free market to maximize their earnings by denying them the ability to bargain collectively, negotiate their own opportunities or sue for damages.
College sports generate billions of dollars off students who put their bodies on the line. Any legislation that purports to protect them should do more than protect universities’ pockets.
—Max Watert, Quinnipiac University, undecided
Leveling the Playing Field
As a former student athlete who went through Division I recruitment, I believe the Protect College Sports Act represents a step forward for collegiate athletics. The proposed legislation would pre-empt the current patchwork of conflicting state laws and establish a national standard for name, image and likeness rights. In doing so, it would provide clear expectations for institutions and student athletes across the country and promote fair competition.
By standardizing NIL regulations, the legislation would allow student athletes to monetize their NIL rights while providing necessary oversight through a mandatory reporting system. The framework includes important safeguards, including agent registration, limits on agent fees and the creation of a database to assist athletes in understanding the fair market value of their endorsement opportunities.
The bill’s protections extend beyond financial matters. It would require medical coverage for sports-related injuries, guarantee scholarships for up to 10 years to encourage degree completion, and establish clear transfer eligibility rules to reduce disputes and roster instability within athletic programs.
By creating a level playing field at the federal level, the Protect College Sports Act will benefit student athletes and preserve the spirit of competition that defines collegiate sports.
—Jane Martin, University of Southern California, business administration
