Why is the Protect College Sports Act a bipartisan bill?

Nowadays, nothing is done on a bipartisan basis. The Protect College Sports Act, however, is somehow a bipartisan bill.

During a Thursday visit to #PFTPM, Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) was asked why this specific effort has support from both sides of the aisle.

“These coaches in these conferences, you know, have a lot of power, and the Power Five is in both states represented by Democrats and represented by Republicans,” Murphy said. “They’ve spent a lot of money on this bill. This place is flooded with lobbyists representing the schools, and the players really have no voice up here. They just don’t. The players’ organizations all are opposed to this bill, but the players don’t have money, or not enough money, not as much money as the colleges. So I think part of it is that a lot of my colleagues have heard a ton from the coaches and from the schools, and haven’t heard much from the athletes. I have a longstanding relationship with a lot of athletes and a lot of athletes organizations. So I hear from them — how this bill is gonna hurt students — but I just don’t think their voice has been, unfortunately, adequately heard in Congress.”

That seems to be changing. Whether it was the bizarre, boo-infested Ted Cruz segment on College GameDay or something else, the opposition is finally coalescing. And Murphy is among the most prominent voices against it.

Does that mean he’ll be on Saturday’s edition of GameDay?

“I mean, the reality is that those students will probably boo any United States Senator that shows up,” Murphy said. “I mean, maybe Ted gets booted a little bit more, but I don’t think that there’s a real market for any politicians to be on that show. So, I don’t know, if they invite me, I think twice about it.”

It will be interesting to see whether ESPN invites anyone to present the opposing viewpoint to the one for which Cruz advocated last week. The appearance of NAACP president Derrick Johnson on Tuesday night’s SportsCenter supposedly was aimed at getting the other side on the ESPN platform before a potential Senate vote on the bill. That hasn’t happened. So why not provide the equal time this weekend that wasn’t provided last weekend?

Even without another live guest that will make the assembled audience (and those watching on TV) wonder what in the hell is going on, there should at least be a comment on the decision to give Cruz a one-way runway to talk about the bill — along with a summary of some of the strongest arguments against it.