The U.S. Senate this week passed a landmark bill that would regulate college sports and try to bring some order to a chaotic and increasingly expensive landscape that has been upended by court decisions that allow players to be paid.
Whether the Protect College Sports Act really does protect college sports is a matter of some dispute — although it did pass the Senate by a wide and bipartisan margin of 77-22. Virginia’s two senators were on opposite sides — Democrat Mark Warner in favor, Democrat Tim Kaine against.
Whether the bill ever becomes law is also unclear. The measure now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives, whose members have left Washington to spend the fall campaigning for reelection. One of the bill’s two sponsors — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas — has pressed for the House to come back into session before the election to take up the bill; there’s even been chatter about President Donald Trump staging an event at a college football game to sign the bill just before Election Day for the congressional midterms. Less dramatically, the House could also take up the bill in a lame duck session after the election.
Or maybe the bill just dies for lack of a vote. The Congressional Black Caucus opposes the bill because members say it restricts the earning potential of college athletes; some Republicans have ideological concerns about regulating college sports. Yahoo! Sports also reports that some House members just don’t personally like Cruz, who is said to be holding up House bills; they would welcome the opportunity to return the favor.
Let’s put this in football terms: Cruz, as quarterback of the bill, has just heaved a long pass downfield. Will it be caught for a game-changing touchdown? Or will it fall incomplete? At this point, we don’t know.
There is one thing we do know, though, and that’s this: The Protect College Sports Act will not protect the Atlantic Coast Conference (the league in which Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia play) from imploding in the next big round of college realignment. The original version tried to freeze conference memberships but left room for some movement. The version that passed the Senate this week left even more room — enough room that, in theory, 10 of the ACC’s 18 schools could leave.
In reality, that’s the most extreme scenario, but just a few years ago it was unthinkable that the Pac-12 conference would blow up — and yet it did, with most of its schools leaving for higher-paying leagues. This bill, as written, would regulate departures from the ACC (and other conferences) but would not end them. In fact, it might even accelerate them.
At 180 pages, this bill is a thick playbook that attempts to cover a lot of ground, from dictating how much sports agents can get paid to restricting the ability of players to transfer from one school to another, and lots of other things. I will focus on just one aspect of this weighty bill, the part that attempts to minimize schools moving from one conference to another.
For those who don’t spend their Saturdays watching college football from noon to midnight, here’s a quick primer. There are four “power” conferences, but they are not equal in stature — or revenue. The Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference are pulling away from the Big 12 and the ACC in how much money they take in. That has led some ACC schools — notably Clemson and Florida State — to look for ways to exit the conference in hopes of making more money elsewhere.
The Knight Newhouse College Athletics Database (run by the Knight Commission on Athletics and the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University) says that last year the SEC took in $3.4 billion and the Big Ten $3.1 billion, while the Big 12 brought in $1.7 billion and the ACC brought up the rear at just under $1.5 billion. It might be more useful to look at specific schools: Texas in the SEC generated $352.5 million from athletics, and Ohio State in the Big Ten $336 million. By contrast, Virginia Tech brought in $161.2 million and Virginia about $155 million. The playing field may be level on the turf, but not anywhere else.
The goal was to stabilize the college sports world and prevent another Pac-12 situation where 10 of its 12 schools left almost at once, and the conference was left to reconstitute itself with lesser-known members. That’s likely why Cruz’s co-sponsor is Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. One of her state’s schools, Washington State, was left orphaned when other conferences did not want it. Nobody wants their school to be like Washington State or Oregon State, the other Pac-12 school that was left behind.
The original version of the bill capped conference membership at 19 members apiece. The Big Ten currently has 18, so that was seen as a way to leave room for Notre Dame if that school ever drops its independent status. The bill, as passed, raises the cap to 20 members.
That doesn’t seem like much, but here’s what it leads to: If this bill were to become law, the Big Ten and ACC could each add two members, the SEC and Big 12 four teams apiece. However, as we’ve seen, not all these conferences are equal. No schools will want to move down, but some may want to move up. They will also now see there’s a cap — which might motivate some schools to make a mad dash for a new conference before the league fills up.
The original bill also required schools to spend five years in the independent wilderness if they tried to switch conferences, something few, if any, could afford. The bill, as passed, reduces that to three years. Here’s how Sports Illustrated explains this: “And with the three-year waiting period sunsetting after six years, around the time many of the conference media rights deals expire, mass realignment may once again occur. This could all be setting up for another Big Ten–SEC feeding frenzy on the Big 12 and ACC.”
That means about six years from now we can see the college version of the Oklahoma land rush — or, if you prefer, musical chairs. If the Big Ten thinks it can make more money by adding two schools, it will — who will they be? Ditto the SEC on adding four schools.
Put another way, which ACC schools will those conferences want? We already know that Clemson and Florida State have been looking elsewhere. North Carolina sometimes has had its eyes elsewhere, too.
It’s fruitless to speculate too much — but it does seem wise to look ahead. If you’re Virginia Tech or Virginia, you’d prefer the ACC stay intact as it is. However, you also need to plan for worst-case scenarios — and the worst-case scenarios would be for more than half the ACC’s schools to jump conferences. At what point is the ACC no longer the ACC, and it becomes more financially lucrative for the Hokies and Wahoos to seek other conference homes?
If we play that out far enough, we get to a scenario I’ve already seen chatted up on some fan message boards — the day when an ACC looking to fill some holes looks to Harrisonburg and Norfolk and decides that James Madison and Old Dominion just might be schools fit for a reconstituted ACC.
Why Warner voted yes
“College athletics provide incredible opportunities for student-athletes, serve as a critical pipeline for Team USA, and bring beloved traditions to communities across Virginia. I’ve long understood their importance — as governor, I worked to make sure Virginia Tech had a place in the newly expanded ACC.
“The current disorder in college sports isn’t serving athletes, schools, or fans well. This bill isn’t perfect, but it provides needed stability while protecting athletes’ ability to earn compensation from their name, image, and likeness, safeguarding scholarships, expanding guaranteed access to health care, and protecting athletes from predatory agents. I’m also glad to see strong protections for women’s and Olympic sports, and I believe this bill represents an important step toward a fairer and more sustainable future for college athletics.”
Why Kaine voted no
“This is a bill to tackle a real problem that needs a comprehensive solution. I can see some things in this bill that I like, and I’m impressed that the NCAA and college conferences, including those whose members include Virginia schools, have signaled their support. But this bill won’t be ready for primetime until it strikes the right balance to protect the best interests of student athletes. For example, why does the bill cap compensation for student athletes while allowing those who make massive salaries and profits from their labors — coaches, athletic directors, sports networks, online gambling operations — to rake in obscene amounts of money with no cap? And why must student athletes’ rights to avail themselves of legal remedies under state laws for mistreatment by their institutions be dramatically restricted? We should pass a version of this bill that keeps its many good provisions without unreasonably limiting the young people who create America’s exciting college athletic environment.”
Normally I write about politics, but here’s an occasion where politics and sports collide like a linebacker blitzing the quarterback. You can decide which is which. For more political insights, sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that goes out on Friday afternoons.
