{"id":654525,"date":"2026-09-30T09:34:41","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T16:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=654525"},"modified":"2026-09-30T09:34:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T16:34:41","slug":"a-new-deal-for-college-sports-how-the-protect-college-sports-act-would-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/a-new-deal-for-college-sports-how-the-protect-college-sports-act-would-work\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Deal for College Sports? How the Protect College Sports Act Would Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New Deal for College Sports? How the Protect College Sports Act Would Work<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Alexander L. Ballard<\/p>\n

The Protect College Sports Act would change college athletics by altering compensation, transfer, and eligibility\u00a0 rules, establishing protections for non-revenue sports, limiting antitrust liability for specified rules, and leaving\u00a0 athlete employment status unresolved.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act, 77-22, on Monday night, sending it to the\u00a0 House after months of hearings, amendments, and lobbying. It would change college athletics by altering compensation, transfer, and eligibility rules, establishing protections for non-revenue sports, limiting antitrust liability for specified rules, and leaving athlete employment status\u00a0 unresolved.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The compensation rules are the most-discussed part of the bill, and they are also the most misunderstood. The bill does not set a single new compensation cap. It keeps the existing revenue sharing cap from the <\/span>House <\/span><\/i>settlement in place, then layers two add-ons on top. Schools can exceed that cap by up to $22.5 million a year through a \u201cretention fund\u201d designed to retain athletes at the\u00a0 school, subject to statutory conditions, and by up to another $5 million a year specifically tied to compensation for athletes in non-revenue, women\u2019s, and Olympic sports. A school loses access to the larger retention-fund exception if it fails to meet graduation-rate and academic-progress benchmarks. So the extra money is not guaranteed just by having the revenue to spend it; a school has to keep its athletes eligible and progressing academically to use it at all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The bill also gives the NCAA, conferences, and schools specified antitrust protection when they enforce or comply with a defined list of rules, including compensation, eligibility, transfer, recruiting, and agent-registration rules. In <\/span>NCAA v. Alston<\/span><\/i>, 594 U.S. 69, 84\u201386 (2021), the Supreme Court applied ordinary antitrust scrutiny to NCAA restrictions on certain education-<\/span>related benefits. The Senate-passed bill would therefore provide statutory protection for specified rules that <\/span>Alston <\/span><\/i>subjected to ordinary antitrust scrutiny. That protection covers the rule-makers, not the athletes bound by the rules; it settles who can get sued, not necessarily what the rules themselves say.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Non-revenue sports get their own set of protections. Schools with $80 million or more in annual athletics revenue have to maintain their 2024-25 levels of roster spots and grant-in-aid opportunities in non-revenue sports, including Olympic sports, for nine years, with a waiver available for financial hardship. A separate provision covers schools with $50 million but less than $80 million in revenue, protected for four years with additional exemption grounds. Schools below the $50 million threshold are not covered by either of those roster-and-grant-in-aid protections. That means the same bill can protect a swim program at one school while leaving a comparable program at a smaller athletic department with no equivalent floor at all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Athletes\u2019 eligibility and transfer options change too. Division I and Division II athletes get a maximum five-year eligibility window, a rule that currently exists as NCAA bylaw but would become federal statute if this bill is enacted. Athletes transferring from one four-year institution to another may transfer once without losing or delaying eligibility; a second transfer generally carries a one-year eligibility penalty, subject to exceptions for things like a discontinued sport or a coaching change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The bill does not resolve the employee-status question, and it says so directly: the legislation is neutral on, and does nothing to alter, whether student athletes are employees. It also creates a 24-member Commission on the Future of College Athletics, directed in part to study the implications of collective bargaining and employment status. That question has not gone away; it\u00a0 <\/span>has just been passed to a commission rather than settled in the bill itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

The House will not take it up until after the November midterm elections, when it returns from recess. Its practical effect will differ depending on where an athlete competes: the school\u2019s athletics revenue, the athlete\u2019s sport, and the rules that apply to that institution all matter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Alexander L. Ballard is a <\/span>J.D. Candidate, 2027, Northeastern University School of Law, concentrating in sports law. He is a former Division II swimmer and current college club swimming coach with experience in collegiate athletics compliance.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A New Deal for College Sports? How the Protect College Sports Act Would Work By Alexander L. Ballard The Protect College Sports Act would change college athletics by altering compensation,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7533,"featured_media":639851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6,17],"tags":[126018,138434,138134],"class_list":["post-654525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-college","category-commentary","tag-college-sports","tag-pcsa","tag-protect-college-sports-act"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nA New Deal for College Sports?<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Protect College Sports Act has been approved by the Senate and sent to the House of Representatives for Approval. 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