Chairman Cassidy Delivers Remarks During Hearing on Reforming College Athletics to Prioritize Students’ Success

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, delivered remarks during today's hearing on how Congress can reform college athletics to better protect students and ensure they have opportunities to succeed. As Chairman of the HELP Committee, Cassidy is leading efforts. Recently, Cassidy led a roundtable discussion with U.S. Senators Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Jon Husted (R-OH), and Chris Murphy (D-CT) and expert panelists. Cassidy also is requesting information from stakeholders on how Congress can address issues.

Click here to watch the full hearing.

Cassidy's opening remarks as prepared for delivery can be found below:

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will please come to order.

People love college sports. They gather at bars and love to talk about it. I'm an LSU fan. There's nothing like a Saturday in Death Valley. You get up early, tailgate in the parking lot, watch Gameday with friends and family until it's time to go in the stadium. Few things bring people together like college sports; they are the heartbeat of communities.

Student-athletes can break out of poverty thanks to sports scholarships. They got a shot! If you're a kid from rural Cameron Parish whose family has never been to college, but you're a talented basketball player, you can earn a scholarship and get a degree and achieve the American dream.

Sports gives kids that chance. Parents want that for their children.

By the way, sports are an economic gold mine. LSU home football games bring in millions of dollars to Baton Rouge. Every Saturday, thousands of fans come into town and spend their money in local bars, restaurants, businesses, the school and its endowment. Economic impact all over the place!

And have you ever looked at college admissions rates before vs. after their football team wins a National Championship? The year after winning, schools see the number of applications rise.

It's a multi-billion-dollar industry with enormous impact. And right now, the head is exploding.

For the first time, student-athletes are getting paid.

That's a good thing. Student-athletes are getting paid above the table, sharing in the universities' profit.

The bad thing is people are preying upon young athletes, exploiting them to make decisions that could leave them without a degree, without any sort of loyalty between them and the university and without that long term prospect for achieving the American dream-again we're talking more than 98% of people will not play professionally.

I'm not saying we go back to where athletes generating significant revenue for a university don't share in that revenue. But it's a false choice to say we must choose between them earning nothing and this current system, in which more than 98% may lose their opportunity to achieve the American dream.

It is fair to say that court decisions, lack of rules, and insufficient leadership, have created confusion, and opened the door to exploitation. A common theme I hear from people is that the current path is unsustainable.

Title IX violations are very likely if we don't change course. There isn't enough money to turn student-athletes into employee-athletes and fund non-revenue Olympic and women's sports. What'll happen is schools will cut non-revenue sports and as a result cut off hundreds of thousands of young people's chance to go to college. Oh, and by the way, you can't eliminate women's sports because of Title IX. But you can reduce how much money is being invested and paid to players. This isn't working.

At most colleges, none of their sports are profitable. It's no wonder the NAIA President warned at our roundtable that many small and medium sized colleges can't survive the cost of collective bargaining.

High Point University could lose their basketball program under collective bargaining, and therefore not be invited to the NCAA tournament and not upset Wisconsin (apologies to Senator Baldwin).

The current landscape is just replacing one unfair system for another. Short term financial gain with NIL deals is overshadowing the value of an education and the value of Olympic and women's sports.

Remember, the vast majority of these student-athletes are not going to college to go pro. They're going to college to get an education and grow as individuals and teammates. College sports is one piece of that larger purpose.

To best serve student-athletes' interests, any solution we come up with must protect student-athletes as students.

The power four conferences represent less than 10% of student-athletes.

As you read about this, people constantly ask, is Congress going to do something? This committee has a responsibility to address some of the issue, so let's take on what we can.

Let's bring stability so students and institutions can navigate without unnecessary burden or costs. Let's get off the sidelines!

This hearing is how do we set up the student-athlete for success whether he or she attend a Power 5, an NAIA, a mid-major, or an HBCU; and along the way make sure we take care of the universities too.

I'm looking forward to hearing our witnesses' ideas and perspectives on how we do that.

With that, I recognize Senator Sanders for his opening statement.

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