Two U.S. House of Representatives committees on Wednesday, July 23 advanced a bill that would establish a variety of national rules concerning how college sports operate, making this the most comprehensive measure connected to the industry set to reach the chamber’s floor in decades.
After considering nearly a dozen amendments, the Energy and Commerce Committee ultimately voted 30-23 to send the bill to the House floor. It was a straight party line vote in which one vote was not recorded.
The Education and Workforce Committee also signed off on the bill later in the afternoon by a narrower margin of 18-17, with Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash., joining all of the Democrats in opposition. In a brief moment of drama, the tally was deadlocked at 17 for several seconds before Rep. Michael Rulli, R-Ohio, cast the deciding vote.
Barring last-minute intervention from another committee, the bill could receive a vote in September, perhaps within the first two weeks after the House is scheduled to return Sept. 2 from a summer recess that is expected to begin at the close of business July 23.
‘Hopefully between now and in September we can work to get some more Democrat support,’ said Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Kentucky, who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee. ‘… We feel like we have reached out and we have put their positions in and I’m not sure why we can’t quite get their support. But I hope people are going to go home, and I’m sure the universities who support this measure are going to talk to them.’
Guthrie said the Southeastern Conference and Big Ten have ‘always put big pressure to try to move this forward’ and expressed hope that schools from those conferences could help convince Democrats to get on board.
If the bill moves to the Senate, its future will remain uncertain, as 60 votes will be needed to prevent a filibuster. So, even if all 53 Republican members back the measure — which so far has received bipartisan support and opposition in the House — seven Democrats also will have to approve.
‘From the partners that I’ve talked to, this is not going to have a future in the Senate’ without changes, Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., told USA TODAY Sports while walking to her office Wednesday for what she said was a meeting with NCAA president Charlie Baker.
Dubbed the SCORE Act (Student Compensation And Opportunity Through Rights and Endorsements), the bill includes antitrust-exemption language that specifically would allow the NCAA, and potentially the new College Sports Commission, to make operational rules affecting schools and athletes in areas that have come into legal dispute in recent years. That would include rules about transfers and the number of seasons for which athletes can compete.
It also would prevent college athletes from being employees of their schools, conferences or an athletic association. The employment issue is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit in a federal district court in Pennsylvania.
In addition, the bill also would codify college athletes’ name-image-and-likeness activities, basically following the terms of the recent settlement of three athlete-compensation antitrust cases against the NCAA and the Power Five conferences. And it would require most Division I schools to provide a series of health and educational benefits for athletes that are currently called for under NCAA and some conferences’ rules, but do not have the force of federal law.
While proponents of the bill have argued that it will help put important guardrails in place for college sports, critics have expressed concern that the legislation hands too much power to the NCAA.
‘We’re not giving everything away to commissioners and to the NCAA, with nothing in exchange for athletes,’ said Trahan, a former college athlete who has been critical of the bill.
There have also been long-standing concerns about what the bill could mean for women’s sports and Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination based on sex.
The revised version of the bill passed by the Education and Workforce Committee added a brief reference to Title IX, but it did not go far enough for lawmakers like Rep. Baumgartner. He said he supports federal regulation of college sports but believes a system that pays male and female athletes differently, based on television revenue, ‘is just not in the public good.’
‘If you do not specifically address Title IX in this bill, it will not resolve the underlying issues,’ he said. ‘Not only will this system exacerbate this slide towards a second NFL, but it will continue to be in the courts.’
Without further changes in the bill, Senate approval seems unlikely. House Democrats have mostly opposed the bill and longstanding negotiations between Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a college-sports bill proponent who now chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, and Democratic senators, including Cory Booker, N.J., and Richard Blumenthal, Conn., remain stalled.
However, as approved on July 23, the bill included a number of changes from the version that was advanced by a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee by a 12-11, party-line vote on July 15. The changes appeared designed to make the bill more attractive to Democrats.
Among those are:
Mandates that would apply to NCAA’s — and potentially the College Sports Commission’s — governance structures. It includes requirements concerning the involvement of athletes and schools outside the Power Four conferences.
It also would require the NCAA, and potentially the CSC, to “establish a council to serve as the primary deliberative body” that is “composed of individuals who represent each conference that is a member” of the association. No such group currently exists within the NCAA, which comprises three competitive divisions. And changes to Division I’s governance setup that are being discussed by those schools aim to reduce the size of its Board of Directors and a secondary policy-making group.
Requiring future studies on several college sports topics by the schools, the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Comptroller General. These would seem to combine to cover ground contemplated by a college sports commission President Donald Trump had been considering.
The schools would be required to report within 180 days of enactment and then, every two years, on issues relating to compliance with the SCORE Act and “recommendations to improve the health, safety and educational opportunities of student athletes.”
The FTC would have to study the possibility of establishing an independent entity to address certification and regulation of agents who represent college athletes. The Comptroller General would have to conduct a study within two years of enactment covering the impact of the SCORE Act on schools’ Olympic sports programs, “including the funding of Olympic Sports” and to ‘develop recommendations for support of Olympic Sports, given the unique nature of Olympic Sports and intercollegiate athletics’ in the U.S. It also have to analyze “trends with respect to roster sizes for Olympic Sports,” especially at Power Four schools.