ICYMI: Chairman Cruz Hosts Roundtable on the Protect College Sports Act
Click here to watch a video recap of the roundtable.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), and Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) hosted a roundtable with coaches, student athletes, and university presidents to discuss the Protect College Sports Act.
Chairman Cruz emphasized, “The Protect College Sports Act is about restoring order to a system that is collapsing due to too few rules and too much litigation. It creates a national standard on transfers, eligibility, tampering, inducements, and revenue sharing. … This bill is designed to protect the entire college sports ecosystem, not just the schools at the top of the revenue ladder. … Failure is not an option. We can’t fail at this because to see over a half million kids every year, having the opportunities they have, to see that go away would be an absolute tragedy.”
The Protect College Sports Act would restore order in college athletics by creating enforceable national rules, preserving fair competition, protecting student athletes, and ensuring fans do not lose the teams, rivalries, and traditions they love.
The bill would end the chaos by bringing stability to transfers, eligibility, recruiting, tampering, and real Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rights for athletes; protect student athletes without turning college sports into professional sports; preserve fans’ favorite games and traditions; make TV money work for college sports; and restore competitive balance to ensure all schools, not just the blue bloods, can compete.
Click here to watch the full roundtable.
To view Chairman Cruz’s opening remarks, click HERE.
Excerpts from roundtable participants:
Felisha Legette-Jack, Women’s Basketball Head Coach, Syracuse University:“We are now in the process of being able to leave our legacy. What does that look like? Right now, it looks like universities without borders. You know as a basketball coach, you step out of line that’s a turnover. That’s the other team’s ball. But there’s no boundaries right now because it’s growing and growing and growing, and this Protect College Sports Act is going to allow us to have those boundaries again.”
Charles Huff, Head Football Coach, University of Memphis: “The stability is what we need. … If we don’t get some stability and we don’t get some protection of our rules, the separation of the issue you’re talking about is going to become greater, because over time, it’s going to be a fight to stay in the arms race, it’s going to be a fight to fight the agents, it’s going to be a fight to pay the money, it’s going to be a fight to stay in the transfer portal. And fighting those battles is going to take us further and further away from making sure that our facilities and our opportunities match.”
Derek Mason, Head Football Coach, Middle Tennessee State University: “The state of college athletics is truly under attack. … What we’ve been seeing is this, this erosion of conversation between coaches and the student athlete. Right. I do think the protections in this bill, you know, are warranted and needed. It feels like The Hunger Games in college athletics.”
Vice Admiral James W. (JW) Crawford III, President, Texas Southern University: “If you’re getting at the ability where you have some controls, you don’t have this continual bidding war, where you’re not in a constant recruiting mode… but you put some sort of controls around that, then those resources can be put into other things so that your non-revenue generating sports are benefiting from those resources. … Those students that are in those non-revenue generating sports are able to compete. And the money doesn’t just simply flow into those sports that gain all the attention.”
Sherika A. Montgomery, Commissioner, Big South Conference: “Without a bill that balances protections and restrictions, which I think there is a balance here, the ecosystem that we all know and love will continue to be chipped away at.”
Sara Bower, Student Athlete, Women’s Soccer, University of Akron: “We really emphasize that we’re students first, before athletes. … At the end of the day, we want to play the sport we love while getting a degree.”
Gannon Flynn, Student Athlete, Men’s Swimming, Boston University: “I think the transfer portal in and of itself is an amazing thing, but it is the Wild West. … Getting those good degrees and scholarships that go to Olympic and women’s sports do wonders to allow students who may not have gone to such prestigious universities to go on to become doctors, lawyers, teachers and help, the next generation, grow up. I think that this bill does a good job of regulating the transfer industry.”
Some of the conferences, universities, colleges, members of the President’s Roundtable on Fixing College Sports, and invested parties who support the Protect College Sports Act are listed below. To see a full list of supporters, click HERE.
University of Texas, San Antonio
Members of the President’s Roundtable on Fixing College Sports
National Association of Basketball Coaches
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