Senate passes college sports bill 77-22, with House approval still needed

The US Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act by 77 votes to 22 on Monday, advancing a bipartisan proposal to regulate college athlete payments and transfers. According to reporting published by the Guardian, the legislation would give the NCAA new rule-making authority and limited antitrust protection. It still requires approval from the House of Representatives and is not law.

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The proposal follows a 2025 court settlement that allowed colleges to pay athletes directly for their name, image and likeness. It would put that settlement into federal law, including a provision allowing schools to share up to $21.5 million in revenue with players. Some schools could make up to another $27.5 million available through a retention fund, a measure that helped secure support from the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference.

Transfers and eligibility would also face new limits. The bill would generally permit athletes one transfer without having to sit out a year during a five-year period, subject to exceptions, and restrict total eligibility to five years. Those provisions form part of an effort to establish national rules in a system where movement between teams and legal challenges have complicated roster management.

The proposed restrictions extend beyond players. Coaches would be barred from leaving their schools during the season, while schools changing conferences would have to spend three years competing independently. Conferences would be limited to 20 programs. The legislation would also allow schools and conferences to pool their television media rights as a way of raising revenue.

Supporters argue that the bill would reduce litigation and uncertainty while adding health and labor protections for athletes. Critics dispute whether those measures go far enough. Senator Chris Murphy objected to limiting athletes’ share of revenue without corresponding limits on coaches’ salaries or donations to athletic programs. The NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus and AFL-CIO have also opposed the proposal, partly because it leaves athletes’ potential employee status and collective bargaining rights unresolved.

The next legislative step remains uncertain. The Guardian reported that the House is in recess until after November’s elections and had repeatedly failed to bring a different college-sports proposal to the floor over the past year. If both chambers do not pass the legislation before the end of the year, lawmakers would have to begin again in the next Congress.