It is a fact of college athletics that student-athletes, coaches, and administrators are often tight-lipped with the media. No one wants to say the wrong thing - soundbites can become a source of embarrassment, hang like a shadow looming over the rest of their career, or provide cheap motivational fuel for their opponents - so they often say nothing. Today, in a wide-spanning conversation with local media, Oregon State athletic director Kevin Griffin spoke openly. Halfway through the roundtable, Scott Barnes' successor looked across the room, took a deep breath, and matched a question with a question."Do you want to turn this into a sports business conversation?"The bill in question, sponsored by Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz and supported by the Big Ten and SEC, would establish layered spending limits - akin to a soft salary cap - as well as a national framework for NIL and revenue sharing."I've got a 10:30 call with the staffers from our senators here in Oregon [Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley], that's a quick call to share with them our point of view on some of these issues that you raised", Griffin began. The former Ohio State staffer went on to highlight the impact of the bill, good and bad, on his new employer:"There's some things in that there that we like, there's some things in there that we don't like. Let's take the cap you mentioned. So the cap right now, and we're obviously not up to the cap this year, the cap would move up to 21 million, and that's the regular cap, and then there's a retention which is I think another 20 [million] depending on what happened today, and then there's another five for what has been called women's sports and Olympic sports protections."Oregon State's new athletic director believes the bill could help mitigate mass-exoduses of transfers such as what happened to the Beavers' football program and women's basketball programs following their respective 2024 seasons."It really helps us start to clarify for our student-athletes that they have one time to transfer without penalty. It's important for us, because we are trying to make covenants with our student-athletes, not contracts, what I mean by that is we want our student-athletes to stay here. We want to have relationships when we recruit them in high school, and we want them to be here and graduate as Beavs."Critics have lamented the lack of student-athlete representation in the bill, and Griffin pinpointed another issue: will the group of six and other smaller conferences be given a fair shake?"I think the folks here in Corvallis, and maybe in Pullman, have a really interesting perspective given what we went through with the Pac-12, and then the Pac-2, now back to the Pac-12. It's very clear to this campus and our leadership what athletics means."Currently, the bill is up for debate, and it is uncertain whether it will come up for vote before the Senate takes their annual August recess. Regardless, Griffin believes Oregon State is ready."They may vote today, they may vote tomorrow, but either way, whatever they do, whether it passees or not, Oregon State will be positioned to be the right school and the right institution for our student-athletes and our coaches. We'll put on a good product for our fans."Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow