The Big Ten and Southeastern conferences agreed Friday night to support a Senate bill that seeks to regulate college sports, ending a breakneck week of negotiations and pulling the bipartisan measure out of what looked like a certain death spiral.
School presidents from both conferences voted to back the bill after receiving last-minute concessions over language regarding third-party name, image and likeness deals and the so-called “associated entities” that often broker those arrangements between players and schools.
More details need to be worked out, but the headline is that the bill still has a chance to earn the 60 votes it needs to halt debate and head to an up-or-down vote before the Senate heads for summer break next Friday.
The summer recess is increasingly looking like an intractable deadline for the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan effort headed by Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
After the two conferences, which had balked at large sections of the bill, put out a short release announcing they supported the act “as currently drafted,” Cruz put out a short statement on social media thanking the leagues and saying: “Let’s save college sports.” And Cantwell said: “Good. Now progress can be made in protecting women and Olympic athletes and moving the legislation closer to the President’s desk.”