Protect College Sports Act Passes the U.S. Senate

Introduction

On September 28, 2026, the U.S. Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act of 2026 (S. 4668) (the “Act”) with broad bipartisan support in a 77-22 vote. While this marks the most significant legislative milestone to date for establishing a national framework for college athletics, the U.S. House of Representatives must still approve the same legislation, or both chambers must resolve any policy differences, before the bill can be presented to the President. In the meantime, the political calendar presents a separate set of challenges, as the House is not scheduled to reconvene until after the midterm elections.

Overview

In a prior Client Alert, we summarized several key elements of the version of the Act submitted by Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell before the Senate’s annual August recess, including its proposed national rules for name, image, and likeness (“NIL”) compensation, targeted antitrust protection, revenue-sharing, student athlete health and academic protections, collective media-rights negotiations, and federal preemption of certain state laws.

While the principal framework of the Act remains the same, the legislation ultimately passed by the Senate this week contains revisions that include the following:

• Power-conference cap raised to 20. An amendment co-sponsored by Senators Ashley Moody and Richard Blumenthal raised the cap on power-conference membership from 19 to 20 members. Senator Moody stated that this change was important to preserve opportunities for schools in Florida, the state she represents, such as University of Miami, Florida State University, and University of South Florida.
• Reduction in the conference realignment lookback period. The Senate-passed version shortens from five years to three years the lookback period that would determine whether a school is a covered conference member when applying the Act’s limitations on conference mergers and acquisitions.
• Preservation of state health and safety claims. An amendment sponsored by Senator Tammy Baldwin is intended to clarify that the Act does not preempt certain state-law actions brought by student athletes for injuries relating to alleged hazing or abuse, deficient campus safety measures, or a school or state’s failure to provide adequate health and safety protections established by applicable law.
• Foreign funding disclosure. An amendment sponsored by Senator Tim Scott requires institutions, conferences, and intercollegiate athletic associations to disclose funds they receive relating to intercollegiate athletics from certain foreign sources, including a foreign government, foreign adversary, or sovereign wealth fund.
• Academic conditions on retention-fund payments. A school may use the athlete retention fund only if it satisfies uniform benchmarks for student athlete graduation rates and academic progress. The revised text also allows schools and conferences to maintain more demanding academic standards.

What Comes Next

The next step in the legislative process is consideration of the matter by the House, where a companion bill was introduced this summer. Although the House is not scheduled to reconvene until November 9, 2026, Senator Cruz has pushed for the House to return prior to the midterm elections, based in part on the significant bipartisan support and political momentum the Act received in the Senate. If that effort fails, the bill’s fate would be determined during the post-election lame-duck session of Congress.

Apart from the difficulties presented by the political calendar, it is hard to predict how the Act would fare in the House on the merits. While the legislation faces opposition from the Congressional Black Caucus and skepticism from certain House members, many of the policy questions do not fall neatly along party lines, meaning that party affiliation may be a less reliable way to predict the outcome.

Attorneys at Stites & Harbison will continue to monitor the Act and related developments.