U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) helped pass the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA), which seeks to regulate college athletics.
Along with the Tennessee senators, 75 other senators voted for the PCSA on Monday night. Twenty-two senators voted against the bill.
The PCSA sets national rules for college athletic eligibility, transfers, recruiting, name, image, and likeness, and revenue sharing.
The bill also prevents super leagues from forming and bars agents from taking more than 5 percent in fees from student-athletes.
Women’s and Olympic sports are protected from cuts, as are state laws barring biological males from competing in women’s sports, according to the PCSA.
The bill guarantees schools can’t revoke student-athletes’ scholarships and healthcare for five years after eligibility.
After its passage, President Donald Trump called it a “really big deal.”
“It will not only save college sports, it will save the colleges themselves,” he said on Truth Social.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, who is a cosponsor of the PCSA, said on social media that the Senate “voted to protect the hundreds of thousands of student athletes currently competing in college sports, the millions who will follow in their footsteps, and every college sports fan who wants to preserve this great American tradition for generations to come.”
“After years of discussions and months of intense deliberations, we achieved what many said was impossible and succeeded in getting the Protect College Sports Act through the Senate with a huge bipartisan vote,” he added.
U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), a cosponsor of PCSA, called the revenue-sharing rule “probably the most important thing [Congress] could possibly ensure in federal law.”
“This is Congress saying, for the first time, that an athlete gets a percentage of the media rights, the ticket sales, and the sponsorship,” she said on social media.
According to Cruz, he said he has “trust” in the House of Representatives passing the PCSA and bringing it to Trump’s desk.
On Tuesday, the chair of the Division I Student-Athlete Advocacy Committee and chairs of the NCAA Division II and Division III Student-Athlete Advisory Committees called on the U.S. House to pass the PCSA.
The three organizations, which represent more than 500,000 student-athletes, asked House members to move quickly on the bill.
The House is currently not in session, as the legislative body adjourned so members could campaign for upcoming midterm elections. House members will return on November 9th.
The House has until January 3rd, the last day of the 119th congressional session, to pass the bill. If the House fails to pass the bill, it expires and needs to be reintroduced.
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