Cruz-Cantwell bill – A bipartisan bill from Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Maria Cantwell would reshape college sports rules from athlete eligibility clocks to TV-rights revenue sharing, but it also draws pushback from the SEC and Big Ten and raises questions about whether federal power s
By the time the question reached the right nerve—who should control college sports rules—the answer was already on paper.
Last week, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) released a bipartisan bill that. in Cruz’s telling. is meant to stop a growing “chaos” in college football. In a wide-ranging package described as 111 pages. the proposal would seek to regulate everything from college athletes’ eligibility clock to conference realignment. rivalry games. hiring cycles. and media rights money.
Cruz’s argument is blunt: college football will “crumble” if Congress doesn’t act. But the federal government’s role in the day-to-day machinery of College Sports Inc. is now the center of the fight—because the bill would move beyond setting broad standards and into telling schools how and when they can run key parts of their business.
Cruz’s view is that federal involvement should be limited, even while he now backs a major federal intervention. In an interview with On3. he said the legislation is designed “to stop the chaos.” In the same discussion. he argued that when you ask the federal government for help. “you never know where it goes.”.
His skepticism about Congress’s reach is grounded in the belief that governance shouldn’t be handed to lawmakers in Washington. He has also argued that the NCAA needs enforceable rules—while questioning whether college sports governance should be surrendered to the federal government. He pointed to specific examples. including his belief that NBA players shouldn’t be allowed onto a college basketball court. and he said he likes the idea of a five-year eligibility clock and the eradication of eighth-year seniors.
The bill’s arrival has already landed in front of commissioners and conferences that spent years urging action. At the SEC spring meetings, a reporter asked SEC commissioner Greg Sankey about the Cruz-Cantwell bill. When the reporter began with the phrase “When you ask the federal government for help …. ” Sankey interjected and finished the sentence: “… you never know where it goes.”.
Sankey’s reaction underscored how quickly the debate has turned from request to response. He also said, “It wasn’t that long ago I was being asked about my feelings on a ‘skinny bill.’ I don’t think 111 pages is a skinny bill.”
As the bill moves toward a legislative path, neither the SEC nor fellow superpower Big Ten nor the NCAA has endorsed it. The SEC and Big Ten oppose at least part of the proposal—specifically, a plan that would allow conferences to pool their TV rights revenue if the legislation were enacted.
At stake is not just who controls media money, but how federal rules could restructure incentives across the sport. The bill also faces attention from others around college sports who question whether the federal government should involve itself in college football’s hiring cycle.
One of the most direct changes is aimed at the timing of coaching moves. If enacted. the bill would limit when colleges with coaching vacancies could hire away a coach or coordinator from another school. The proposal would prevent those hires from happening until after the season, shifting the hiring carousel to January or later.
That change may sound tidy on paper. Cruz has framed it that way, telling On3 that “If it works for the NFL, it would work just fine in college.” In his view, moving hiring to after the season would address the instability that critics describe as “roster chaos.”
But the bill’s critics have pointed to how schedules in college football don’t line up neatly with the logic of the NFL. The NFL’s anti-tampering rules dictate when and how coaches can be poached. but those rules are established by the NFL. not by the federal government. The NFL also does not face the same calendar reality: Cruz’s bill would collide with a December national signing period and a transfer portal opening in early January. all while college programs remain tied to an academic semester schedule.
The practical question—what happens to schools that fire coaches during the season—hangs over the whole proposal. “Are schools that fire their coach during the season just supposed to navigate signing day and the transfer sweepstakes without a coach?” attorney Tom Mars wrote on social media. Mars said he has made his name from lawsuits involving college athletics.
Cruz’s bill, though, arrives on a track that college sports itself laid. Conference commissioners, the NCAA president, university leaders, and even coaches traveled to Capitol Hill for years and pleaded for government action to address problems in college sports.
Now those pleas have produced a federal package that would reach into specific operational decisions.
That includes not only hiring timing, but also how money flows to athletes and how athletes’ business relationships are governed. The Cantwell-Cruz bill, described as 111 pages, would cap how much schools can pay athletes. It would also institute a percentage-cap on earnings for players’ agents.
Sports lawyer Darren Heitner, who has represented college athletes, warned that the agent cap could backfire. Writing on social media. he said. “The cap (for players’ agents) risks driving experienced agents out of the NIL space altogether. leaving athletes to either go unrepresented or turn to less reputable operators who may skirt the rules.”.
Cruz. however. argues the bill is targeting the right targets—and he draws a line around what the proposal does and doesn’t do. He said the legislation includes no language capping earnings for coaches. coaches’ agents. athletics directors. conference commissioners. or the like. arguing the bill only “hamstrings compensation for athletes and their representation.”.
Even with its substantive scope, the bill’s political odds remain uncertain. The legislation would need to clear a challenging path to become law, and timing could be difficult with an election in November. Cruz nonetheless sounds committed to the urgency he’s been selling.
“I think college sports right now are in crisis,” Cruz said.
He also made a stark prediction during his On3 interview: if Congress does nothing. within three years. only 30 to 50 universities will maintain college football teams. He said. “The rest of them will shut down. ” while offering no evidence for the claim that most schools are only a few years away from dropping college football.
His forecast fits a familiar pattern in the sport: repeated warnings that the sky is falling unless politicians step in. But other facts undercut the apocalyptic framing. More FBS programs exist today than ever before. and a team with a doormat’s history in college football won the national championship.
The bill’s deeper irony is that it answers an argument the sport has made for years. The NCAA and other leaders repeatedly asked Congress to intervene, and in response, they have now been handed a 111-page proposal that reaches directly into governance.
For Greg Sankey and other leaders who asked for help—then now confront the scale and reach of what arrived—this isn’t a quiet policy adjustment. It’s a new federal presence in a business that had already been pleading to be saved.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
Ted Cruz Maria Cantwell college sports NCAA college football SEC Big Ten NIL transfer portal hiring cycle coaching rules media rights eligibility clock U.S. Congress