Capitol Hill suddenly silent on the destructive impact NIL has had in college sports
Finally, there’s a bipartisan initiative in Congress to fix the mad cash grab that’s plaguing college sports — but it has been greeted with a remarkable hush from the crowd.The Protect College Sports Act is slated to be introduced by Sens.Sen.
Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).The idea is to stem the tide of cash flowing to football and basketball that has upended collegiate sports, pitting big schools against smaller ones, and shortchanging women and Olympic sports.
It also seeks to recover donor funds being siphoned away from academics in pursuit of big-name athletes.Despite its bipartisan approach, however, the bill isn’t guaranteed passage.It will need a filibuster-proof majority to get through the Senate.
And guess what? It seems there’s lots of money flowing through Capitol Hill that’s heavily invested in protecting the status quo.There will be an intense lobbying effort to kill the bill, I am told.And the NCAA, the ruling body of college sports, has been remarkably silent on Cruz-Cantwell.
That’s despite its history of public complaints that the business of college sports has degenerated in recent years.“Where are these people supporting this?” said New York Yankees President Randy Levine who alongside Florida Gov.Ron DeSantis led a blue ribbon panel commissioned by President Trump to reform the business of college sports.“For years they’ve been complaining that the system is out of hand, and now for some reason when we have a fix for most of what they’ve complained about, they’re silent,” Levine told me in an interview.An NCAA press rep tells us: “We are reviewing the proposed bipartisan legislation and look forward to further productive dialogue with members of Congress, student athletes and NCAA schools to safeguard the opportunities college sports provides to more than half a million student athletes each year.”As chronicled in these pages, Trump last month issued an executive order that set an Aug.
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