Stop the Presses! GOP and Democrats Join Forces on a Major Bill

The need for compromise and bipartisanship may have been inherent in the vision of the framers who authored the US Constitution, but 250 years after the nation’s founding, consensus has all but disappeared amid the most bitter political divisions between the GOP and Democrats in decades. No matter the issue, if an executive order is signed or a bill is supported by President Donald Trump, the Dems would put their entire political future on the line by supporting it, and the reverse holds equally true. That is why there ought to be banner headlines following the Senate's passage this week of the Protect College Sports Act.

Yes, agreement on both sides of the aisle on an important, if not earth-shattering, issue is apparently still possible, as evidenced by the Senate voting 77-22 in favor of long-awaited legislation designed to provide stability to an increasingly unstable industry. It may not be the equivalent of Democrats supporting the Iran War or Republicans signing on to Medicare for All, but college sports are enjoyed by more than 60% of adult Americans, and 55% of women, according to a recent survey by George Mason University. So this is an achievement that might make both Republicans and Democrats feel OK – for once, though undoubtedly, especially with midterms on the near horizon, for just a short while.     

GOP and Democrats Finding Common Ground, Really?

If all you care about is loading up a college roster with every mercenary who can be signed up for a year before he transfers out again, then no problem. But major college athletics have now become little more than a minor league for the NFL and NBA. Increasingly generous compensation for an individual’s name, image, and likeness (NIL) has opened up bidding wars, created constant player movement from year to year, and turned whatever legitimacy the term “student-athlete” once conveyed into a laugh line.

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Is this sufficient reason for the federal government to step in and put a leash on an industry that often seems like the Wild West, with lawsuits flying all over the place, rules changing from league to league, or even from team to team within those leagues? Trump called for reform shortly after returning to the White House, and enough Republicans and Democrats agreed that the Protect College Sports Act was introduced and passed the Senate after months of wrangling. The bill, co-authored by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA), would make a number of structural changes designed to set national standards for the recruitment, transfer, and compensation of college athletes. However, it still needs to pass the House, where members repeatedly tried to pass a different version of the bill last year, but to no avail. If the bill becomes law, the NCAA, an industry long subject to arbitrary standards, would be granted not only final authority over transfers, compensation caps, and academic requirements but also limited antitrust protection to enforce its will.

The law calls for dramatically increased revenue sharing, with the cap for direct school-to-player revenue rising from $21 million, the amount set by previous court settlements, to $49 million. It would restrict athletes to one "free" transfer, i.e., without the penalty of sitting out a season, over a five-year eligibility window. The law would also restrict coaches from leaving mid-season, likely in response to the controversy surrounding Lane Kiffin, who abandoned his post as head coach of the University of Mississippi as the team prepared for the College Football Playoffs to take the head coaching job at Louisiana State University. 

Not Your Father’s College Sports

Back in the day, college audiences would get to enjoy their teams’ players for four years. Then, the best athletes started turning pro after as little as one year in college. Now, it is not uncommon for players to “matriculate” to three different programs in their five years of eligibility. Out the window are loyalty to the program that first recruited them, the time, effort, and expense to woo them and their parents, and the promise of an education beyond phys ed and basket-weaving. Now it’s all about the Benjamins. There is even talk about players going pro before their college eligibility is up and then returning to college to sweep up more money left on the table.

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Put simply, college sports have become strictly transactional. Most of the players have become loyal not to their current school but to their agents – remember when that was strictly prohibited? – and the biggest payoff they can get for the next season. Then they can rinse and repeat, abandon their latest program, and seek the biggest offer again. It makes for faceless teams with hired hands who played who knows where the year before. It used to be that players transferred because they either didn't get along with the coach or didn’t get enough playing time, and had to sit out a full season after switching schools. That rule was removed in recent years, so now it is strictly a matter of who can provide the largest paycheck for the next season.

So, for athletes hoping to get their piece of the pie from universities making huge amounts of money off their sports programs, NIL and the transfer portal are seen as good things. But for alumni and fans, not so much. When you literally can’t tell the players without a scorecard from one year to the next, brand loyalty is bound to diminish. It happens all the time. A guy wows the faithful with a memorable run in the NCAA tournament, and then he’s gone in a flash, off to seek greener pastures.

This is no longer your father’s college athletics. And it is probably not what you grew up with, either. These big-time sports now serve as what they have always been to some degree but never as nakedly as now: developmental leagues for the pros – with plentiful benefits. And while the Protect College Sports Act will never bring back the days of Knute Rockne and winning one for the Gipper, it should at least set some reasonable national standards and help to reduce the chaos and confusion of college sports in 2026 to a dull roar.

The Senate's passage of this legislation marks a turning point on a long, winding road for college athletics on Capitol Hill. More than 40 college sports bills have been introduced in Congress since 2020, with several facing endless debate and committee review before dying on the vine without ever reaching the floor of either the Senate or the House. Will this one make it to the president's desk? Either way, the Senate vote should be cheered by Americans, whether sports fans or not, who have long since become sick and tired of endless combat between the two major parties.