WASHINGTON (AP) — A bill that top lawmakers and athletic leaders have described as the best chance to stabilize college sports faces a key test in the Senate on Thursday as sponsors roll out a revised version after weeks of input from schools, conferences and athletes. The bipartisan Protect College Sports Act aims to regulate payments to players, limit them to one free transfer over their careers and create a rule to restrict coaches from changing jobs during a season. The Senate Commerce Committee will debate the latest version of the bill on Thursday before potentially voting on whether to send it to the full Senate for consideration.The legislation is the product of months of negotiations between Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top lawmakers on the Senate Commerce Committee, and comes when lawmakers in both chambers of Congress are grappling with whether it’s time for them to intervene in college sports.
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The Senate bill has won backing from several athletic conferences as well as the NFL and its players’ union and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee. But the two most powerful conferences in college sports — the Southeastern Conference, based in Birmingham, Alabama, and the Big Ten Conference, based in Rosemont, Illinois — have not endorsed it.
