Top GOP Senator suggests fix for college athletics and NIL

The calls for congressional reform of college athletics are growing louder. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., one of the most powerful figures in the Capitol, is now joining the fray. 

What is Sen. Thune’s idea? 

In a guest appearance on the Ruthless Podcast, Wednesday, July 23, Thune offered up his solution to the issue of Name, Image and Likeness payments to college athletes. 

College coaches and administrators have struggled to navigate the payments since the House v. NCAA settlement made “pay for play” legal on July 1. The absence of standards and guardrails that cover the entire NCAA landscape has led to individual states passing their own legislation. South Dakota’s senior senator said that’s part of the problem. 

“I think there’s an argument for Congress to act, but I hope we can find a way to land this thing that doesn’t entail a unionization in creating this sort of new business model,” Thune said. “I think one thing you could do, for sure, to create transparency, is have a standard uniform contract that athletes, schools, parents, everybody knows what the deal is. Because right now, it’s like the NFL without a contract. They go from one year to the next year, they just go to whoever’s gonna pay them the most.” 

Why are schools struggling with NIL?

The College Sports Commission, set up following the House settlement, has tried to regulate outside collectives that broker deals between players and prospective universities. Those collective deals are in addition to the $20.5 million pool of money each school can spend on its athletes. Thune does not want to see athletes unionize but also believes agents are taking advantage of the situation. 

“In some cases, they are telling these kids, ‘Go to the portal, I will get you an NIL deal on the back end,’ and it doesn’t materialize,” Thune said. “In fact, they tell me that about half of them — that’s true. So the agents always come out ahead, so there is a sweet spot there, I think.”

Those thoughts echo recent comments from conference commissioners like Greg Sankey of the SEC and Jim Phillips of the ACC, who are pushing Congress to get involved. Texas Head Coach Steve Sarkisian pointed out some of the same issues Sunday, July 20, at the Texas High School Coaches Association conference. 

“Let’s paint a picture,” Sarkisian said. “We sign a young man to a three-year contract. That should mean, in my opinion, if he’s on a three-year guaranteed contract, that he has to stay at my university for three years. The problem I have with that is at the end of year one, if Billy doesn’t like the way it’s going, he’s a free agent. He can go in the portal and leave. That doesn’t make sense to me. That’s not a good business model.”

When could legislation happen, who is in opposition?

Thune is hoping the relevant committees can work through the issue quickly to put a proposal on the Senate floor but acknowledged that could be difficult. 

“There are a lot of other things right now — defense authorization, funding the government, and maybe Russia sanctions and a lot of stuff coming at us that we’re going to have to deal with,” Thune said.

Thune’s proposal is separate from the SCORE Act, which passed through a pair of House committees Wednesday and could be put to a vote in that chamber during the fall session.   

The SCORE Act would not restrict NIL earnings but would leave regulations to the schools and conferences and grant them antitrust protections. Should the SCORE Act pass the House, it faces a higher bar in the Senate, where it would need at least seven Democratic votes to pass. 

One of those Democrats, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., reiterated her opposition to the SCORE Act, Wednesday.

“This legislation rolls back athletes’ rights established less than 30 days ago, undermines women’s and Olympic sports, squeezes small and mid-major schools, and makes the big schools richer, more powerful and less accountable. It’s a no-brainer why Attorneys General on both sides of the aisle, players associations, labor groups, and fans want to see a different game plan on NIL,” Cantwell said.