Amid NCAA president Charlie Baker’s latest visit with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, there is growing movement to hurriedly produce federal legislation over college athlete compensation before the nation enters another presidential election cycle this fall.
Baker, hired in March to replace Mark Emmert, returned to the Capitol a week ago for meetings with House and Senate members and their staffs in an effort to encourage a federal bill. Among the people with whom he met was Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, the group that likely controls the trajectory of any college athlete legislation. The list also includes House member Mikie Sherrill (D., N.J.), who has been vocal about the issues around the disparate treatment of women athletes versus men.
Baker’s visit comes at a time in which at least some congressional lawmakers are seriously gearing up to move on a college athlete bill. Several lawmakers and Congressional aides spoke to Sports Illustrated about the latest movement on the issue:
- Senate Commerce Committee leaders are working to schedule another hearing on the issue.
- An early draft of a bill from Senators Tommy Tuberville (R., Ala.) and Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) is complete and has been reviewed by several executives within college athletics.
- A narrow NIL-based bill is expected soon from Representative Gus Bilirakis (R., Fla.), the chair of a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which likely controls legislation around college athletics within the House of Representatives.
While the range of movement is a positive to any congressional legislation, there is still a long way to go, says Tom McMillen, the former lawmaker who presides over LEAD1, an association for FBS athletic directors.
“I think there is a greater interest in it, and Charlie Baker has been well received, but I’m not sure it’s at the level of a must-pass bill,” McMillen says. “How do you get this in front of members? I think they’ve got to do it the old-fashioned way. The 1,200 schools have to start calling their reps and tying up the phone lines and emailing them and making a lot of noise here to get this on the docket.”
A deadline of sorts seems to be this fall or winter, when the presidential election season truly begins. “If you get too much into next year, it gets caught up in the election mode,” McMillen says.
In a statement released to SI, an NCAA spokesperson said, “The NCAA, under President Baker’s leadership, last week moved to require Division I schools to provide several new benefits to support student-athletes’ academic success, health and well-being. As members continue to modernize college sports, working with Congress is necessary. With more than 30 different laws in 30 different states affecting college sports, the Association lacks the legal clarity necessary to put in place consumer protections for student-athletes and other important functions of a national governing body for sports.”
In March, Baker spent much of his first two weeks on the job meeting with lawmakers in what many of them describe as positive visits. He is a fresh new face after Emmert spent years on the Hill struggling to persuade members to move on the issue.
The NCAA is seeking a college athlete bill that (1) provides a national name, image and likeness standard, preempting state NIL laws; (2) deems college athletes as students and not employees; and (3) offers protections from legal challenges so the NCAA can create more rules around NIL.
“The engagement under Emmert was not really productive,” says Sherrill, who with Representative Maria Salazar (R., Fla.) introduced a bipartisan bill earlier this year to address and promote fairness and equity in women’s sports called the Women in NCAA Sports (WINS) Act. “This felt like there was far more interest and engagement in coming to solutions. I came away impressed.”
The representatives’ conversation centered on Title IX–related issues stemming from the unfair treatment of women athletes. Sherrill says the NCAA is in negotiations over the future broadcasting package for the women’s basketball tournament as well as other women’s NCAA women’s and Olympic sports.
The women’s tournament enters its final year of a $34 million broadcasting contract that is bundled with other Olympic sports. However, many have suggested the event warrants a stand-alone, more lucrative TV deal. An NCAA study last year showed that the rights for the tournament could be worth as much as $112 million. This year’s tournament drew a record-breaking 9.9 million television viewers, a whopping figure many professional sports’ postseason events do not garner.
Their conversation eventually turned to NIL, Sherril says. The lawmaker, like Baker, believes that any legislation needs to require more oversight around sports agents and provide athletes and their families resources and protections.
“We are looking into several pieces of legislation. It has bipartisan support,” Sherrill says.
The continued movement of states to enact more and more NIL-related laws has gotten the attention of lawmakers, including Sherrill, who expressed concern over state bills in Oklahoma and Texas that would prevent the NCAA from enforcing its own policies.
“If you are trying to do these protections and you have states undermining protections, that’s when it starts getting concerning,” she says.
Another move that has caught the attention of those on Capitol Hill: a bill in the California state legislature that would require state schools to share revenue with athletes, a proposal that if passed would likely trigger a wave of similar bills in other states, much like the NIL movement in 2020 and ’21.
Baker spoke with Cruz and his staff about schools’ concerns over the current landscape of college sports and athlete compensation, congressional aides tell SI. The NCAA wants to have a firmer hand in enforcing NIL but is somewhat handcuffed by previous court rulings. Their discussions also involved granting the NCAA protections to create stricter policies around NIL.
“You don’t need to create a federal NIL standard if you empower the NCAA to create its own rules through a safe harbor,” a congressional staff member says.
Meanwhile, two bills are in the final stretch of completion. Tuberville and Manchin are finalizing their draft in the Senate, while Bilirakis is readying his proposal in the House, aides say. However, will either have a chance of passing as the next presidential election season approaches? The question lingers.
“There are so many other issues, but it has grown in intensity and there is more interest,” says McMillen. “Time is of the essence.”
