Sec And Big Ten Agree To Support College Sports Bill After Weeks Of Negotiations

The Southeastern Conference and the Big Ten — the country’s two most powerful college athletics conferences — agreed Friday night to support a sweeping Senate bill that would impose new federal rules on college sports.

The conferences have been wrangling with the Senate Commerce Committee for weeks over details of the bill — which would limit how large conferences could expand to and how much money they could spend compensating student athletes — as they said various iterations of legislative text fell short of addressing their outstanding concerns.

But a majority of presidents and chancellors in the two conferences voted to support the bill on separate calls Friday evening, according to four people close to the process who were granted anonymity to share details ahead of a public announcement.

"The Big Ten Conference and Southeastern Conference support the Protect College Sports Act as currently drafted, following detailed and productive negotiations with Senators Cruz, Cantwell and Schmitt and their respective staffs," the two conferences said in a joint statement Friday night. "We appreciate the substantial work that has gone into this effort."

The development could clear the way for Majority Leader John Thune to tee the bill up for fall action before the Senate adjourns for August recess, as Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has long hoped. But it remains unclear if the Senate floor calendar will allow quick action — or if the bill will be able to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the chamber.

“I think it's a lot closer than what people think,” Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) said in a Thursday interview. “From my point of view, there's been an awful lot of movement in the most important aspects, at least for Colorado and for myself.”

The about-face came after the Commerce committee agreed to alter language aimed at closing a loophole that could allow schools to exceed the bill’s revenue-share cap via “associated entities,” like multimedia rights partners and corporate sponsors. The two conferences previously said the bill’s language around the loophole was not strong enough.

The committee acknowledged those concerns in a Thursday afternoon email obtained by POLITICO. A senior staffer wrote the bill’s current language aligns with proposed provisions from the conferences sent to the committee last week.

“We are not going to establish one cap for schools that follow the rules and a second, effectively unlimited system for programs capable of routing compensation through affiliates, collectives, or booster-funded entities,” the staffer wrote in the email to conference commissioners, adding, “We are also not going to pass a law that denies student athletes from inking real, third-party commercial [name, image and likeness] opportunities.”

The Commerce Committee shared updated text with conferences late Wednesday night after the SEC and the Big Ten blew past a morning deadline to respond to a previous version of the bill.

The latest version of the legislation strengthened enforcement of the bill’s rules around “associated entities” in an effort to win over the conferences’ support, according to a document obtained by POLITICO. It also tightened rules governing contracts between student athletes and their agents, expanded NIL disclosure requirements, and added carveouts to eligibility and transfer rules.

The turnaround came after both conferences convened their university leaders on several conference calls throughout the week to discuss the latest changes to the bill, according to three people familiar with the planning. The Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 also held calls with their university leaders Thursday afternoon about the bill.

It also came after NCAA President Charlie Baker publicly implored university leaders and senators to coalesce behind the bill amid last-minute negotiations.

"It is long past time leaders across college sports call for the immediate passage of the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act — a bill supported by student-athlete leaders, Democrats, Republicans and NCAA schools from all three divisions," Baker wrote in a Friday statement.

The SEC and the Big Ten had previously opposed a provision in the bill allowing conferences to jointly negotiate their media rights, insisting that any such provision include language ensuring that participation in any “media pooling” is voluntary.

The committee added language protecting universities and conferences from facing potential lawsuits if they choose not to participate. But the SEC and Big Ten pushed for a postseason carveout for media pooling to be written into the bill, arguing it would “ensure that entities that choose not to pool rights are not coerced into pooling by having no other option” for the postseason, per a document obtained by POLITICO.

Also critical to bringing the two conferences on board was an 11th-hour intervention by the White House, which has supported the bill throughout the process.

“The White House has been following these negotiations closely, and the President has been actively engaged,” an administration official said in a statement Thursday afternoon. “President Trump wants to save college sports, and he wants the bill done.”