Cantwell Releases Bipartisan Bill to Stabilize College Sports, Protect Athletes & Expand Revenue Sharing

Cantwell Releases Bipartisan Bill to Stabilize College Sports, Protect Athletes & Expand Revenue Sharing

Breakthrough proposal will receive a hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on June 3rd

EDMONDS, WA - U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, is introducing the Protect College Sports Act of 2026 to protect athletes, preserve true competition in college sports, and maximize collegiate athletic opportunities while bringing desperately-needed stability to the college sports system. The Act creates new rules and new tools to stabilize college sports, including codifying athletes' rights and protections in law, supporting women's and Olympic sports, and amending the Sports Broadcasting Act (SBA) to expand revenue for all schools.

"We're seeing thousands of men's and women's athletic roster slots and a hundred athletic programs being cut," Sen. Cantwell said. "Collegiate athletics is a hallmark for human development. Let's not ruin it with out-of-control chaos. This bill puts new tools and new rules on the table to rein in runaway costs while still preserving NIL, revenue sharing, and women's and Olympic sports"

The bill is being co-introduced with Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX), along with Senators Eric Schmitt (R-MO) and Chris Coons (D-DE).

The Protect College Sports Act includes many of the athletes' rights and protections, and other provisions from Sen. Cantwell's Student Athlete Fairness and Enforcement (SAFE) Act introduced last year with Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Cory Booker (D-NJ).

PROTECTS ATHLETES:

First-ever National Rights and Protections for Student Athletes That Are Strong and Enforceable:

• Grants student athletes a new federal right to earn compensation for their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and replaces the patchwork of state laws with a strong national NIL standard.
• Sets NIL contract requirements that protect student athletes; contracts must include key terms like what the athlete must do under the contract and how much they will be paid.

New Agent Rules with Real Teeth to Protect Athletes From Exploitation

• Requires agents to register with a state and certify to the NCAA that they are registered before they can lawfully represent a student athlete.
• Caps agent fees at 5 percent.
• Prohibits agents from making fraudulent statements in their registration.
• Prohibits agents from misrepresenting NIL deals to entice student athletes to enroll or transfer. Gives athletes a private right of action to enforce their NIL rights and bring cases in court against unscrupulous agents.

10-year Scholarship Guarantee

• Guarantees scholarships for ten years after eligibility so athletes can complete their degrees.
• Ensures student athletes cannot lose their scholarship because of injury or athletic performance.

Student Athletes' Health and Safety Protections While in School

• Requires Division I schools to provide medical coverage while athletes are participating in sports, including covering the cost of a second opinion and providing an end-of-eligibility medical examination.
• Mandates safety standards for heat exertion, brain injury, sickle cell trait and asthma; enforced by independent officers.
• Requires schools to designate independent health and safety officers who report to an office that is independent of the athletic department. These officers will oversee the implementation of the safety standards and be responsible for reporting any suspected violations.
• Prevents coaches or non-medical athletic personnel from second guessing the decisions of medical personnel about a student's ability to play.
• Requires schools to prevent, assess, and remediate abuse of athletes, hazing, sexual assault, sexual misconduct, and sexual harassment.

Healthcare Protections When the Game is Over

• For Division I schools, mandates 5 years of post-eligibility medical coverage for sports-related injuries.
• Creates a $60 million a year trust fund to help schools with demonstrated financial need provide post-eligibility medical coverage and to help athletes with the cost of significant, long-term conditions, like chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), incurred from playing a sport.

Strong Enforcement When Athletes' Rights Are Violated

• Gives athletes a private right of action to enforce provisions of the bill, including their NIL rights, the agent protections, the health and safety standards, the scholarship protections, and the medical coverage requirements.
• Athletes cannot be forced into arbitration to enforce their rights.

Clear Eligibility and Transfer Rules to Participate in Intercollegiate Sports

• Gives student athletes five years of eligibility beginning at 19 or high school graduation, with exceptions for reasons of pregnancy, religious mission, military service, and other approved absences.
• Guarantees student athletes one transfer without losing eligibility. Student athletes who transfer a second time have to sit out a year except in certain cases, including the discontinuation of their sport or sexual assault or harassment.

Equal Treatment in Tournaments

• Requires the NCAA and conferences to maintain comparable standards across men's and women's teams for medical care, lodging, meals, rest, transportation, and athletic facilities at conferences.

Athlete Ombudsman

• Creates an Office of Athlete Ombudsman at the NCAA to provide independent guidance and advice to student athletes, help them resolve disputes with schools and conferences and refer them to available resources.

Whistleblower Protections

• Provides whistleblower protection to individuals who report violations of the bill's provisions.

Student Athletes Get a Seat at the Table

• Requires at least one-third of athletic association governing boards or other committees with rulemaking authority to be comprised of current or recent former student athletes.

EXPANDS REVENUE TO BENEFIT SCHOOLS, ATHLETES, FANS

More Revenue for Every Participating School

• Schools join a voluntary collective to pool and jointly negotiate their media rights, just like the NFL, NBA, and NHL. The bill amends the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 to extend this antitrust protection to college sports.

Less Pressure on Endowments and Student Fees

• New pooled revenue under this bill gives schools more financial stability without raiding academics or charging students more.

Voluntary Participation, Existing Contracts Preserved

• No school or conference is forced to join. Existing media rights contracts are not abrogated.

Medical Coverage and Trust Fund for Injured Athletes

• Pooled media rights revenue from the SBA covered entity may be used to fund the $60 million trust fund to help schools with demonstrated financial need provide post-eligibility medical coverage and to help athletes with the cost of significant, long-term conditions, like CTE, incurred from playing a sport.
• Establishes a $60 million national trust fund, replenished yearly, to help lower-resourced schools meet heath care obligations and to cover long-term conditions, including CTE and other cognitive impairments.
• Pooled media rights revenue from the SBA covered entity may be used to fund this obligation.

Protections for Women's and Olympic Sports

• Schools must use pooled media revenue to maintain the same number of grant-in-aid opportunities and roster spots for non-football sports as provided in the 2024-25 academic year. Stops major programs from cutting non-revenue sports to fund football and basketball arms races.

Local Outlet Option for Football and Basketball

• Requires every football and basketball game be made available on a non-exclusive basis to at least one local outlet in the home market of each participating school.

Media Rights Utilization for Non-Revenue Sports

• Requires distributors to reconvey media rights back to schools if those rights are not used, so non-revenue sports like volleyball, soccer, and track can grow through targeted distribution rather than sitting on a shelf.

Prevents a Big Ten-SEC Super League

• Bars any conference that had more than $1 billion in revenue in FY2025 from merging with, consolidating with, or acquiring another conference's assets, media rights, or membership. Without this provision, the two largest conferences could consolidate control of college football under a closed super league.

A Move Back to Regionalism

• Protects traditional rivalries on football schedules to ensure fans still get to see their favorite teams play each other.

Prohibits Mid-season Coaching Transitions

• Prevents football coaches and key football staff from leaving mid-season to coach or otherwise effectively take over another FBS program during the same competitive season, including through recruiting, roster management, NIL activity, or game-planning functions.

Background on Sen. Cantwell's Work on College Sports:

Sen. Cantwell is leading the effort to reform college sports and ensure tomorrow's athletes have the same opportunities as today's competitors do. In March, Sen. Cantwell released a bipartisan discussion draft of the College Sports Competitive Act with Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) that would amend the Sports Broadcasting Act to allow colleges to pool their media rights in negotiations, which some have estimated would generate more than $9 billion in new revenue for college sports, and would preserve women's and Olympic sports.

In December of last year, she introduced the Helping Undergraduate Students Thrive with Long-Term Earnings (HUSTLE Act) with Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) so that college athletes earning NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) money can protect more of it for their post-playing lives.

In October, Sen. Cantwell joined former college and professional athletes and Sens. Booker and Blumenthal in warning that the SCORE Act would roll-back hard fought NIL rights and health protections, leave athletes vulnerable to unscrupulous agents, short-change women's and Olympic sports and shut the door on collective bargaining rights.

Last September, Sen. Cantwell, joined by co-sponsors Sens. Booker and Blumenthal, introduced the Student Athlete Fairness and Enforcement (SAFE) Act to codify athletes' rights and protections in law, expand revenue for all schools, support women's and Olympic sports, and bring much-needed stability to the college sports system. Sen. Cantwell also released a report showing how skyrocketing media rights payments have exacerbated a massive financial gap between traditional power conferences, especially the new Power 2-the SEC and Big Ten-and everyone else. In August, she wrote to the presidents and chancellors of more than 350 Division I universities and their governing bodies, warning about the dangers that the SCORE Act poses to the future of college athletics.

The text of the bill is HERE. A section by section is HERE.

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