There’s a point at which you start to question whether college athletics are truly profitable, somewhere between a school discontinuing its wrestling program to balance the books and a starting quarterback declining the NFL Draft because his NIL contract pays more. Not broken. Broken. It appears that Washington has reached that point.
The Protect College Sports Act of 2026 was introduced last week by Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell, a Republican from Texas and a Democrat from Washington who have very few points of agreement. Before a single word of the bill was read aloud, Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Chris Coons of Delaware joined them, and the announcement’s bipartisan optics made a statement. People who wouldn’t typically share a microphone are now doing so because college athletics have gotten so bad.
Five years ago, the bill’s proposals would have seemed unattainable. The amount that schools can pay athletes is capped. Transfer regulations with real sanctions. a five-year limit on participation in collegiate athletics. a prohibition on former professional athletes playing collegiate sports again. Most importantly, since the NCAA’s historic 2024 settlement, schools have been surreptitiously taking advantage of loopholes, which will now be closed by a new College Sports Commission. According to reports, some of the wealthiest football programs were driving roster expenses closer to $40 million, which is almost twice what the agreed-upon cap was meant to permit.
The NIL era has been akin to a gold rush without a sheriff since it started in earnest following the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision against the NCAA’s amateurism framework. Athletes soon realized how valuable they were. Arch Manning, the quarterback for the University of Texas, reportedly made $5.4 million the previous season. AJ Dybantsa, a forward for BYU basketball, earned $4.2 million. These college students, who are technically amateurs, are making more money than the majority of mid-level NFL players; these are not professional salaries. This is not how the system was intended to be used.
As this develops, it’s more difficult to ignore the fact that the schools themselves have been the loudest advocates for federal intervention. For years, conference commissioners and athletic directors insisted that the NCAA could oversee its own ecosystem. The president of Georgia University is now speaking on Paul Finebaum’s radio program, essentially stating that chaos is imminent. It’s not a rhetorical device. That’s an organization acknowledging that it lost the plot.
However, the bill has its detractors, and some of the most vocal ones are advocating for the athletes it purports to safeguard. The law is a “restriction on athlete compensation” disguised as reform, according to Athletes.org, a group that supports the rights of collegiate athletes. According to sports lawyer Darren Heitner, the closure of collective and third-party NIL pathways, along with a strict spending cap enforced by an antitrust exemption, could significantly reduce the current earnings of elite athletes. He pointed out that there is a clear distinction from professional leagues: players in the NFL and NBA negotiate salary caps through unions. There is no place for college athletes at that table.
There’s a lot of tension. A 10-year scholarship guarantee, mandatory medical coverage for catastrophic injuries, and independent health and safety officers who report outside the athletic department are some of the real protections included in the bill. They’re not window dressing. These safeguards could be crucial for a walk-on offensive lineman at a mid-major university. The spending cap may feel more like a ceiling than a safety net to Arch Manning.
Instead of merely overhauling NIL, Senator Cruz presented the bill as a “stability” measure. Senator Cantwell cited the hundreds of sports programs and roster spots that are being eliminated nationwide. Smaller schools were left struggling to maintain swimming and track teams as the money that flooded into college athletics was concentrated at the top, at the wealthiest programs, in the most popular sports.
On June 3, former Alabama coach Nick Saban and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua will testify before the Senate Commerce Committee. It is truly unclear if the bill will pass in the end. According to one sports lawyer, almost every stakeholder has something to object to because of the legislation’s extensive scope, which includes transfers, NIL, eligibility, coaching regulations, media rights, and agent fees. That indicates either how extensive the issue is or that the bill is attempting to accomplish too much at once.
Most likely both. When Washington attempts to resolve an issue that was unfixable for ten years, that is typically the outcome.
