U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) continues to speak to media outlets about the Protect College Sports Act that he and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) have proposed, as he talked to CNBC this morning about the bill. He noted the bill “tries to bring order to the chaos” currently in college sports and said, “If we don’t act, I think we’re on a path where within five years there will be 30-50 colleges that have college sports, and it will basically be a mini NFL.” A hearing on the bill is taking place Wednesday morning, with Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua, Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould and former football coach Nick Saban among the witnesses.
Cruz was asked what made this bill different from the SCORE Act, which also attempted to instill guardrails for college athletics but failed to draw a vote. Cruz said, “The SCORE Act played out as mostly a partisan bill, mostly as a Republican bill, so it had much larger anti-trust immunities. It was unequivocal that student-athletes are not employees. I agree with both of those -- I would happily vote for the SCORE Act. The problem was the SCORE Act can’t pass the Senate.”
The Protect College Sports Act was introduced last Wednesday, and Cruz said, “In the few days since we announced this bill, we have seen conference after conference, university after university endorsing this bill, saying, ‘Yes, please act.’ This is a time where Congress, we can’t even agree on what time of morning it is. I hope we can put that partisan disagreement behind us and solve this problem” (“Squawk Box,” CNBC, 6/2).
SBJ’s Ben Portnoy as part of the latest SBJ College newsletter talks to Cantwell about the bill and what it hopes to accomplish. That will be released Tuesday evening.
