Senator Schmitt: Congress Has a Responsibility to Protect College Sports

Highlights Congress' Role in Implementing Key Reforms to Preserve a Uniquely American Institution

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, at a Senate Commerce Committee Hearing on the Protect College Sports Act, U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) discussed Congress' role in preserving and strengthening the integrity of college athletics amid the chaos and instability of the current college sports system.

Watch the Senator's opening remarks HERE.

"There [are] so many great lessons to be learned in life through college athletics, and I truly believe we are on the precipice of that going away… you certainly won't have 500,000 student-athletes being able to learn those lessons every year. It'll be something very different, very different than what we've grown accustomed to. I think college sports-college football in particular-is such a uniquely American institution and it really is worth fighting for. It's worth preserving, but it's not going to happen by itself anymore…" said Senator Schmitt. "People have asked me, 'Why is Congress getting involved in this? And it's a legitimate question… Why in the world would the federal government have anything to do with college sports? Well the truth is Congress is the only entity on the planet that can provide the anti-trust exemption status to empower a governing body to set the rules, and to enforce the rules… No one else can do it. It is up to us…

"The way I view this thing is there's two buckets: you have the governance issue, and you have the revenue issue. The governance issue is granting that authority, to have the rules to protect the student-athletes, for there to be enforcement. On the revenue side, look, the business model of college sports forever has been-basically-you make money on your football program, and it subsidizes all the other non-revenue sports, the women's sports, the Olympic sports. We will lose out if this thing continues down the path. We will not have the same level of athletes competing in the Olympics."

Schmitt is an original cosponsor of the Protect College Sports Act. The bill includes Schmitt's framework to allow conferences to pool media rights to generate new revenue and preserve opportunities for women's and Olympic athletics programs

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