The Senate passed the PCSA on Monday. James Dator on what’s to like and not like about the legislation that now heads to the House.
The United States Senate passed the controversial “Protect College Sports Act” (PCSA) on Monday evening and if the House of Representatives returns to work and votes on the bill, it would then go to the White House for President Trump to sign it into law.
The PCSA was sold to the public as legislation that would codify collegiate sports, even the playing field, and prevent the “runaway spending” that has changed the landscape of college athletics — with a special focus on football. It achieves some of these things, to the bill’s credit, but much of the motivation behind the PCSA is far less rooted in the lofty ideals of fair play, and far more about regressing to a point where success in sports is primarily based in how many rules a school was willing to break.
Complete text of the bill which passed on September 28 can be found here, but today we’re going to dive into the CliffNotes of this landmark legislation to explore the good things it achieves, the bad things it could bring about, and the clearly dirty elements of this bill that were intentionally buried from public view while marketing its passage.
The good
- Protects athletes from predatory “agents”: Any individual who represents themselves as a sports agent will need to register with the federal government, adhere to all Intercollegiate Athletic bylaws, and pass a variety of compliance checks. This should ensure that athletes and their families have more transparency in the process and don’t fall victim to predatory practices from individuals who present themselves as athletic representatives when, in reality, they have no training. It also caps the earnings of agents of collegiate athletes at 5% of the athlete’s earnings, which is in line with NFL and NBA agents.
- Academic protections: Institutions may not terminate or modify a scholarship agreement with an athlete based on their performance, ability to play, or physical or mental illness. An agreement can only be terminated based on an athlete transferring to another school or breaching the school code of conduct.
- Broad medical protections: Codifies the responsibility of schools to cover all out-of-pocket medical bills for student athletes, as well as covering them for five years after graduation for any expenses incurred as a result of participating in college athletics.
- Specific medical protections: Ensures greater responsibility is placed on universities to manage post-concussion wellness, heat-related illnesses, and the management of sickle cell traits among their student athletes.
- Protects women’s and Olympic sports: Institutions will now be forced to use media rights money from high-revenue sports to maintain programs in both women’s sports, and non-revenue-generating sports (i.e. Olympic sports).
The bad
- Hard caps on program spending: There has been an overall increase in the spending cap on a sports program to $27.5M, but schools would be in violation of federal law if they funnel money through boosters to athletes or via organized endorsement deals. This flatly means college athletes will make less money (at least on the books) than before.
- Return of the bag man: In relation to the above, this now means less transparency between athletes earning money and how they’re earning this money. There will be loopholes to exploit, the bag men will return to serve as go-betweens, and the “even playing field” will now be more dependent upon the extent to which schools are willing to break the rules and which aren’t.
- Limits all conferences to 19 members: In a section that might as well have been named the “Protect the SEC and ACC Act,” there is now a limit on conferences that bans them from expanding beyond 19 members. This functionally puts a halt to the Big Ten (currently 18 members) from poaching any more schools, many of whom were rumored to come from the ACC, and in turn means less competition to the SEC in recruiting the southeast where a disproportionate amount of football players come from or pressure for it to stay in the arms race of expansion.
The ugly
- Remains neutral on athlete status: The Bill intentionally remains neutral on the question of whether or not student athletes are considered “employees” of the institutions they attend. This is designed to put roadblocks in attempted unionization efforts being made by student athletes by essentially making every single school its own battleground for recognition and unionization, rather than the power of a broad cross-school block of athletes.
- Limits athlete choice: Student athletes are now permitted only one “free” transfer from a four-year institution to another four-year institution. After that they will begin to be penalized eligibility as a result of moving schools. While this does make some exceptions, it will mean that athletes are more under the control of roster decisions and have less self-determination about their future.
- Targets athletes, not coaches or administrators: While college athletes will see their potential NIL earnings be gutted, there is no verbiage in the bill to put a good faith limit on how much money is being earned by coaches, administrators, or support staff. Salient arguments have been made that this pulls money directly out of the pockets of athletes (who are disproportionately black) and allows the continual, rampant rise in costs for coaches and administrators (who are disproportionately white).
- Gives the NCAA antitrust protections: This bill will make it exceedingly difficult to bring lawsuits against the NCAA for impropriety, and give extraordinary protections to operate as it sees fit.
- Media rights holders desperately wanted this: There’s a reason the broadcast partners paying for media rights lobbied so hard in favor of this bill (and even put Ted Cruz on College GameDay). A reduction in money being guaranteed for athletes and a hard cap on their compensation means there will be less bargaining power for conferences to demand more money in rights negotiations due to a “cost of business” argument. This is about bringing financial stability to college sports, which rights holders can then capitalize on. In addition, a lot of this was motivated by ESPN wanting its SEC rights to remain highly valuable by lobbying to hamstring the Big Ten.