House Republicans advanced a bill Wednesday that, if passed, could overhaul America’s college athletics system.
The legislation, known as the Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements, or SCORE, Act was designed to settle confusion over how college athletes can and should be able to profit off their name, image and likeness as well as their college’s revenue.
Introduced earlier this month, the bill preempts existing state-level NIL rules, prohibits student athletes from being recognized as university employees, exempts the National Collegiate Athletic Association from certain antitrust laws and ties athlete compensation to how much TV revenue the team generates.
“We all agree that student athletes deserve to be compensated for their contributions to college athletics, but the current environment is unsustainable and risks exploitation of student athletes,” said Representative Lisa McClain, a Michigan Republican. “It’s time to bring stability to college sports.”
Since 2021, student athletes have been able to sign and profit off of NIL contracts and in June a federal court ruled that colleges could pay them directly. But legislation outlining the rules and regulations for those means of income were patchy at best. Many argued that it was time for Congress to level the playing field by establishing uniform standards, and lawmakers have spent more than a year discussing potential legislative solutions.
As a first attempt at ending the ambiguities, the SCORE ACT has generally received bipartisan support; seven Republicans and two Democrats sponsored the bill. But it’s also received pushback as some lawmakers fear it will lead to the downfall of certain non–revenue-generating sports and won’t properly protect the rights of all hardworking athletes.
Representatives from both sides of the aisle voiced these concerns at two meetings Wednesday held by the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Education and Workforce Committee.
“This bill as drafted misses the mark,” said Representative Troy Carter, a Louisiana Democrat on Energy and Commerce. “Yes, we must create a fair national framework for NIL, but we must not lose sight of who this legislation and the entire NCAA system is supposed to serve—the student athletes.”
Representative Michael Baumgartner of Washington, the only Republican to vote against the bill on the Education and Workforce Committee, said the proposed bill would likely accelerate the demise of many Olympic sports such as track and field, soccer, and gymnastics at the college level.
“If you vote for the SCORE Act, what you’re saying is that football is more valuable and that the value in college sports comes from TV revenue share,” Baumgartner said. “Let’s make a statement today by saying all athletes are equal, all college sports are equal … I think that’s much more in the spirit of public good.”
The bill does include some protections for student athletes such as codifying their right to an agent, setting agent registration standards and capping the compensation level at 5 percent. It also outlines regulations for revenue sharing, requires most colleges to maintain at least 16 sports programs and enshrines legal and tax advising for athletes as well as at least three years of health care after graduation.
Supporters of the bill say this stabilizes the NIL market and gives athletes the ability to profit off their hard work, while also promoting a financially sustainable future for NCAA institutions.
But many critics say it’s still not enough. Without recognition as student employees, athletes won’t be able to unionize or have a say in how long their practices run, what booster events they must attend and when they must travel for games, employment and athletic policy experts say. Without tighter restrictions on revenue sharing, they add, it’s possible that only certain highly profitable sports like football and men’s basketball will be sustainable.
“The bill gives more power to the institutions than the athletes themselves,” said Karen Weaver, an adjunct assistant education professor at the University of Pennsylvania and former athletic director.
For now, both committees have advanced the bill to the House almost exactly along party line votes with no significant amendments. But Weaver believes the bill will have to change in order to reach the president’s desk.
“I don’t think it will survive in its current form,” she said.
Stakeholders Pushback
To Paul McDonald, an attorney who is representing athletes in a lawsuit against the NCAA that aims to recognize student athletes as employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the current bill is likely unconstitutional.
“Anytime you start to consider limiting what college athletes can do in a way that’s not applied to their fellow students, you run into a problem,” he said. “The premise that they have to be either students or employees is belied by the fact that you have student employees on campuses and have for more than five decades [through work study programs].”
Multiple collegiate and athletic associations have pushed back against the legislation as well, filing letters of opposition with the committees. One letter from five state attorneys general described the bill as “a misguided effort” that will empower a biased governance body.
“The SCORE Act … will not redress the persistent power imbalance between the NCAA and student-athletes. To the contrary, it risks enshrining in federal law the same lack of accountability—to antitrust laws, to the states, and to student-athletes themselves—that the Supreme Court and numerous lower federal courts have found to be indefensible,” the letter read. “Simply put, the SCORE Act consolidates too much power in the hands of the NCAA.”
The bill also prohibits colleges from using student fees to support the athletic department, which could be a major hurdle for institutions that rely on this funding model. The University of Minnesota, Clemson and Fresno State all recently increased their student fees by up to $25.
Other sports law professionals noted the timing of the legislation as problematic, saying it was introduced shortly after federal courts reached a settlement on the case known as House v. NCAA, which allowed colleges to directly pay their athletes.
The resolution of this case was the catalyst for “a far-reaching restructuring of the business and law of college sports” said Michael McCann, a sports law professor at the University of New Hampshire. Universities have only just started to figure out how to implement it, he added, so it’s still unclear what works and what doesn’t.
“I think it might be prudent for Congress to give the settlement a chance to take effect before changing laws that interact with it.” he said.
