Last week, the Senate Commerce Committee voted 19-9 to send the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act to the Senate floor for a full vote.
It’s the furthest a bill has gotten in the Senate in the six years since the NCAA and power conferences started lobbying for a bill to regulate college sports. But a group of current athletes and recent graduates are trying to stop it from ever reaching President Donald Trump’s desk.
LSU women’s basketball player Jada Williams, Maryland women’s basketball player Oluchi Okananwa, and former Michigan women’s basketball player Brooke Daniels (who completed her senior season this past year), spoke with FOS to explain why they believe the Protect College Sports Act is an assault on player rights.
Instead of a Congressional bill that sets rules for them—and gives existing college sports governing bodies the power to enforce them—these players endorse collective bargaining. They want to form a union for all college athletes with branches for different sports.
“Student-athletes should be at the center of trying to figure out a system that works for all parties,” Okananwa told FOS. “Which is why, with collective bargaining, we are asking for a model that follows professional athletes. We are asking for something that is already set in place, that has already come to pass, and been successful.”
