Julius Young — Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Vantage
The Protect College Sports Act cleared committee 19-9 with Big Ten and SEC support. It caps NIL agent fees and protects athlete pay, but leaves the private equity ownership question mostly untouched.
The Protect College Sports Act of 2026, introduced in May by Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell with Senators Eric Schmitt and Chris Coons, cleared the Senate Commerce Committee 19 to 9 on June 18. It would cap NIL agent fees at 5 percent of an athlete's earnings, guarantee compensation rights, require athlete representation on governing boards, and establish a Congressional Commission on the Future of College Athletics. The Big Ten and SEC endorsed it in August after negotiators added an athlete retention fund, but a Senate floor vote has not yet happened after the chamber adjourned in early August without one.
What the bill does not clearly resolve is the private equity question a separate, earlier proposal was built around. The PROTECT Act, introduced in October 2025, would have directly prohibited institutions from entering agreements with private capital firms or sovereign wealth funds. That bill has not advanced. The Protect College Sports Act makes media-rights pooling among conferences voluntary rather than banning outside investment in it.
The gap matters because the money is already moving. Private equity interest in college athletics has grown alongside the professional leagues' embrace of institutional capital, and voluntary media-rights pooling is exactly the kind of structure a fund would want access to. Related: NIL Turned College Athletes Into Brands