The Senate has officially passed the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Republican Senator Ted Cruz that is aimed at eliminating some of the “chaos” that has affected college sports, and in particular, football in recent seasons.
The PCSA now has to pass the House of Representatives, but Cruz has remained adamant that the House will pass it. However, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told The Washington Sun this week that the House has a different plan that could include changes to Cruz’s proposal, just about crushing any realistic hope Cruz had for the bill’s passage in the near future.
“There’s some good elements in the bill, but you saw there were some other problems that a number of our chairmen of the committees of jurisdiction in the House have with that bill, that would need to be fixed,” Scalise said. “Look, we’ve got our own process. We want to make sure we get this right, because it’s really important that we allow the schools to govern themselves.”
The Louisiana Republican said that although there are “differences between the House and the Senate” versions of the legislation, “there’s a path to get a final bill to the president’s desk, which is what we ultimately want.”
The Bill has become controversial, with many prominent figures in sports media viewing it as a means to suppress the compensation of student-athletes, especially Black ones, while empowering the institutions that benefit from their labor.
Some people love the bill as is
Others, such as former Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban, have staunchly supported the legislation.
“Well, I think things got out of control based on name, image, and likeness,” Saban said on Get Up earlier this week. “And look, I want players to make money. I want players to have their own name, image, and likeness,” Saban said. “There’s not any business in the world that can function without a budget and some guidelines. If you ask an NFL owner, what would you do if all your players were free agents every year? Oh, we couldn’t operate.
“What would you do if you didn’t have a salary cap? Oh, we couldn’t operate. We’d go broke. Well, what’s going to happen in college sports is you’re going to either take money from the academic side to support athletics because we’re in a runaway, you know, financial situation, or you’re going to drop other Olympic sports and non-revenue sports that are very important to creating opportunities for young people.
“So this is going to put some parameters on that so that we don’t have to take money from academics. We can still provide opportunities for Olympic and women’s sports, which I think is one of the most important things this does. And we still pay players and they still have authentic name, image, and likeness. So I just think this gives us some guidelines so that we can have some rules and regulations that will actually enhance players’ opportunities to be more successful.”
Ultimately, it appears that there is next to no chance the bill passes the way things stand. In addition to Scalise’s words, one House of Representatives source is saying there is a “0.0 percent chance” the PCSA gets voted on before the November midterm elections.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.