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Sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) · 9 active : 4 Republicans, 5 Democrats
Latest action: Held at the desk.
Protect College Sports Act of 2026
This bill establishes requirements for name, image, or likeness (NIL) agreements for college student athletes and provides a limited antitrust exemption for schools and conferences to pool and sell certain college sports media rights. The requirements address elements of the court-approved agreement to settle
In re College Athlete NIL Litigation
(i.e.,
House
settlement
).
First, the bill statutorily prohibits institutions, conferences, or interstate intercollegiate athletic associations (e.g., the National Collegiate Athletic Association [NCAA]) from restricting student athletes from entering NIL agreements (subject to specified limitations). Students must report to their institution NIL compensation greater than $600.
The bill requires agents to register with a state and caps agent endorsement contract fees at 5%.
The bill also provides student athletes with one transfer without losing athletic eligibility and restricts football personnel from becoming the head football coach at a different institution during the same season.
Further, the bill prohibits institutions, conferences, or specified entities acting for the benefit of an institution from providing athletes with compensation that circumvents the limit on sharing revenue with student athletes established under the
House
settlement. The bill also makes the limit permanent and provides for an annual inflation adjustment.
The bill generally prohibits Division I conferences from reducing the number of varsity or Olympic sports teams that a member institution must sponsor. Specifically, large institutions ($80 million or more in annual athletics revenue) must offer and maintain at least as many grant-in-aid opportunities and roster spots for sports that do not generate positive net revenue as the institution provided during academic year 2024-25. The bill provides for a waiver of this requirement under certain circumstances of financial hardship and the requirements expire nine years after the enactment of the bill.
Members fall into . 2 representatives don’t have enough data yet and are marked “insufficient data”. Non-voting delegates are not counted. The bill is not before the House right now; these scores show where members would stand.
Bars show each input from 0 to 100: ideology gap, scorecard gap, , and the . is the seat’s partisan lean, and shows how much of the input data a score has.
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Additionally, the bill establishes (subject to specified conditions) a limited antitrust exemption for institutions or conferences that form joint agreements to transfer their sports telecasting rights to a third party. Such an agreement requires participation from at least 75% of the institutions in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
These members have less than half of the model’s inputs, so their scores are not banded or ranked.
Ideology is each member’s score. The most moderate members of each party sit nearest the center line and highest on the chart. 2 representatives without a DW-NOMINATE score or with insufficient data are not plotted.
Not applicable in the House. There is not enough similar voting history (weight 0.0 of 5.0 needed), so this input is left out of the score rather than counted as missing.
No similar roll calls in the House
