As the Protect College Sports Act Heads to the Senate Floor, What Institutions, Collectives and MMR Partners Should Watch

Following a 15-month period of fits and starts that has featured parallel legislative efforts in the House and Senate, not to mention dozens of lawsuits and two separate executive orders, Congress is closer than it has ever been to enacting a comprehensive federal framework for college athletics. The Protect College Sports Act of 2026 (PCSA) is a bipartisan bill introduced by Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) that aims to establish a uniform set of standards for NIL and eligibility issues, while also solidifying the NCAA’s enforcement authority.

The PCSA was introduced in the Senate on June 2, 2026, reported favorably out of the Commerce Committee by a 19-9 vote, and subsequently placed on the Senate calendar on June 24. In early August, Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed the cloture motion on the bill, and proponents of the legislation have spent much of September attempting to garner public support. This public relations effort includes the public endorsement from representatives of the SEC and Big Ten Conference, as well as Senator Cruz’s live appearance on ESPN College GameDay on September 12. On September 15, the Senate voted 74-24 to halt debate and invoke cloture, moving the bill one step closer to a final vote. Assuming it passes the Senate, the legislation would then move to the House of Representatives.   

The bill arrives after the settlements in the O’Bannon, Alston, and House litigation have progressively weakened the NCAA’s ability to unilaterally impose and enforce rules restricting compensation and player movement without exposure to antitrust liability. The SCORE Act, a companion bill that was introduced in the House in July 2025, advanced out of two committees last year but never reached a floor vote following opposition from the Congressional Black Caucus. Consequently, the Senate’s bipartisan PCSA has emerged as the primary vehicle for federal NIL and governance reform.

With debate on the PCSA set to begin, several provisions of the current text merit close attention:

• A “valid business purpose” standard for NIL deals, requiring compensation to be genuinely tied to promotional activity and commensurate with what a similarly situated non-athlete would receive, codifying the standards in the NCAA Bylaws following the House settlement, which places heightened scrutiny on collective-run, salary-substitute NIL structures.
• A tightened disclosure window, requiring NIL compensation over $600 to be reported within five days, a significant acceleration from the 30-day standard in earlier drafts.
• A revenue-sharing cap tied to the House settlement’s Benefits Pool Limit, recalculated every three years with built-in annual increases, alongside a separate nine-year “retention fund” that would allow schools to exceed the cap to compensate returning athletes and effectively increase the cap to roughly $48 million per school per year.
• Broad antitrust immunity for the NCAA and its member conferences to enforce compensation caps, eligibility and transfer rules, disclosure requirements, and agent certification.
• New restrictions on agents and agencies, including a 5% cap on agent fees (below current market rates of between 15%-25%), contract durations tied to eligibility, and mandatory certification with state and conference authorities.
• A voluntary pooled media rights entity under an amended Sports Broadcasting Act, along with new limits on conference consolidation tied to a $700 million revenue threshold, which would have direct implications for potential conference realignment and private equity investment in college athletics.

Having cleared this most recent hurdle, the PCSA still faces floor amendments before an up-or-down vote in the Senate, as well as uncertain prospects in a narrowly divided House. These obstacles are further exacerbated by the compressed legislative calendar ahead of the midterm elections. That said, after a year of uncertainty during which stakeholders have scrambled to adjust to seismic changes in the world of college athletics in the wake of the House settlement, there is undeniable momentum to find a legislative solution. This sense of urgency has only increased following a recent spate of injunctions and potentially conflicting federal and state-court rulings related to athlete eligibility.

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