WASHINGTON 鈥� The latest effort by Congress to regulate college sports generated predictable partisan outrage Thursday, with Democrats saying Republican-led draft legislation would claw back freedoms won by athletes through years of litigation against the NCAA.
Three House committees are considering legislation that would create a national standard for name, image and likeness payments to athletes and protect the NCAA against future lawsuits.
Last week, a federal judge approved a $2.8 billion settlement that will lead to schools paying athletes directly, and NCAA President Charlie Baker said now that his organization is implementing those major changes, Congress needs to step in and stabilize college sports.
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A federal judge has signed off on arguably the biggest change in the history of college sports, clearing the way for schools to begin paying their athletes millions of dollars.
Baker said he supports the draft legislation that was the subject of Thursday鈥檚 hearing by a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, but there was little indication a bill advanced by the House would generate enough Democratic support to surpass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.
鈥淚鈥檓 deeply disappointed for the second year in a row, Republicans on this committee are advancing a partisan college sports bill that protects the power brokers of college athletics at the expense of the athletes themselves,鈥� said Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass.
Trahan noted that if the NCAA or conferences establish unfair rules, athletes can challenge them in court, with the settlement of the House v. NCAA antitrust case the latest example of athletes winning rights they historically were denied.
鈥淭his bill rewrites that process to guarantee the people in power always win, and the athletes who fuel this multibillion-dollar industry always lose,鈥� said Trahan, who played volleyball at Georgetown.
The NCAA argues that it needs a limited antitrust exemption in order to set its own rules and preserve a college sports system that provides billions of dollars in scholarships and helps train future U.S. Olympians.
Several athletes sued the NCAA over its rule that athletes are only eligible to play four seasons in a five-year period, and a group of female athletes filed an appeal of the House settlement Tuesday, saying it discriminated against women in violation of federal law.
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Eight female athletes have filed an appeal of a landmark NCAA antitrust settlement. They argue that women would not receive their fair share of $2.7 billion in back pay for athletes who were barred from making money off their name, image and likeness. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken approved the settlement last week. The athletes who appealed the settlement Wednesday competed in soccer, volleyball and track. An attorney representing the women says the settlement violates Title IX, the federal law that bans sex-based discrimination in education. The attorney says female athletes are being deprived of $1.1 billion.
On the Senate side, a bipartisan group including Republican Ted Cruz of Texas has been negotiating a college sports reform bill for months, but those talks are moving more slowly than Cruz hoped.
The draft bill in the House would create a national standard for NIL, overriding the state laws that critics say led to a chaotic recruiting environment. That, too, was criticized by Democrats and their key witness at the hearing, Ramogi Huma, executive director of the National College Players Association.
Huma argued that the NCAA wants to get rid of booster-funded NIL collectives that another witness, Southeastern Conference associate commissioner William King, characterized as 鈥渇ake NIL鈥� or 鈥減ay for play.鈥�
Instead, Huma said the collectives are examples of the free market at work, noting that before players won NIL rights through a court case, boosters could only donate to athletic departments.
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The $2.8 billion NCAA settlement is being touted as a path to stability for college sports, clearing the way for schools to pay their athletes within certain parameters. Football and basketball players are expected to be the highest-paid athletes on campus. Most projections estimate 75% of revenue sharing will go toward football. It begs the question: What happens to the non-revenue-generating sports?
Tom McMillen, a former Democratic congressman who played in the NBA after an All-America basketball career at Maryland, took a dim view of the bill鈥檚 prospects.
鈥淚 think they鈥檙e trying to come up with something and pull in some Democrats. I just don鈥檛 know if that鈥檚 going to succeed or not,鈥� said McMillen, who for several years led an association of Division I athletic directors. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a real philosophical divide, so that鈥檚 the hard part. It鈥檚 hard to bridge. And there鈥檚 a zillion other issues.鈥�
The subcommittee chairman, Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., said the draft legislation already had some bipartisan support and he was open to changes that would get more Democrats on board.
鈥淚 will consider some of the suggestions, the legitimate suggestions that were made,鈥� Bilirakis said, 鈥渁nd I will be happy to talk to lawmakers that truly want to get a big bill across the finish line.鈥�