College Sports
The Protect College Sports Act: what changes for college sport
College basketball 2026-27 · 28 September 2026
77
votes in favour,
22 against
The Senate set out how college sport pays, who may transfer and how long you may play. And largely closed off the route to the courts.
On Monday 28 September the United States Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act, by 77 votes to 22. It is the first time a chamber of Congress has actually passed such a bill, and it touches almost everything that has been litigated over the past five years.
The bill comes from Ted Cruz, Maria Cantwell, Eric Schmitt and Chris Coons. Fifty-one Republicans and twenty-six Democrats voted for it, two Republicans and twenty others against, among them nineteen Democrats and the independent Bernie Sanders. One senator did not vote.
The Senate vote
Monday 28 September 2026, after a procedural vote of 74 to 24
51 + 26
Republicans and Democrats voted in favour. The bill came from Cruz, Cantwell, Schmitt and Coons.
2 + 20
Republicans and others voted against, among them Rand Paul, Rick Scott and the independent Bernie Sanders.
$7m
The projected cost of the new oversight commission over five years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
What it says about money
The core of it is that the cap from the House settlement stops being an agreement and becomes law. A school may pay players over twenty million dollars a year directly, 21.6 million this season, set at 22 percent of the average revenue of the largest conferences. A second pot sits on top of that.
Cap
$21.6m
What a school may pay players directly this season, fixed at 22 percent of the average revenue of the largest conferences.
Retention fund
$22.5m
A second pot per school, only for players with at least one season behind them. It expires after nine years.
Women and Olympic sport
$5m
Ring-fenced per school. Together the total lands at roughly 48 million, more than double what it is now.
The figure is recalculated every three years, with a four percent rise in between, and is independently audited. Schools that miss their academic standards lose access to the retention fund.
What changes for players
There will be a federal right to income from name, image and likeness. Deals above 600 dollars have to be reported to the school and to the College Sports Commission. Agents may charge at most five percent and have to register.
A scholarship can no longer be pulled over an injury, poor performance or roster management, and stays guaranteed for up to ten years after a player's final season. There is medical cover for five years after, backed by a 60 million dollar fund, and whistleblower protection.
On transfers: one move without losing eligibility during an undergraduate degree, and another if a player goes on to postgraduate study. Exceptions apply if the coach leaves, if a programme is cut, or in cases of sexual violence. Eligibility becomes five seasons within five calendar years, with the clock starting in the academic year after enrolment or a player's nineteenth birthday, and nobody plays past twenty-four.
Why this closes the courts
Players won almost everything they took to court in recent years. The House case, the fifth-year cases, the transfer cases: each time the NCAA turned out to be breaking antitrust law. That is where the money came from, and the freedom to move.
This law gives the NCAA and the conferences limited immunity against exactly those claims. Rules on caps, eligibility, transfers and agents become enforceable again. The lawyer Sam Ehrlich called the bill the Protect the NCAA Act for that reason. It declares itself expressly neutral on whether players are employees, leaving that argument open.
Who is against it
NCAA president Charlie Baker thanked the senators and said there is much work left to do in the House. Coaches including John Calipari, Mark Few and Deion Sanders backed the bill in the run-up, as did the former coach Nick Saban, though that support was circulated by the Senate committee itself.
The opposition comes from the labour side. The AFL-CIO, NAACP president Derrick Johnson, Ramogi Huma of the National College Players Association and players including Jada Williams and Oluchi Okananwa have come out against it. Their objection: there is no union and no collective agreement, and the liability protection may make universities untouchable. Jason Stahl of the College Football Players Association said the bill was made without athletes' input and reads like it.
Whether it becomes law is open. The House is in recess until 9 November, after the midterms, and then has until 3 January. Republicans want changes, and any change sends the bill back to the Senate.
Meanwhile the season starts
On 1 November Notre Dame and Villanova open the season in Rome, for both the men and the women. A run of games from midnight follows on 2 November.
This is also the first season with 76 teams in the NCAA tournament instead of 68. There will be 44 at-large places instead of 36. Twenty-four teams play twelve opening-round games, on 16 and 17 March in Dayton and Wichita, and Selection Sunday is 14 March 2027. The Final Four is on 3 and 5 April in Detroit.
Not everyone is pleased. Pat Forde wrote that the expansion mainly rewards mid-table teams from rich conferences, and that all eight sixteen seeds and half the fifteen seeds now have to play a preliminary round. That makes an upset by a small school harder, not easier. Participation goes from 18 to 21 percent of Division I, and the media rights bring in fifty million dollars a year more.
Who the favourite is
The top ten going into the season
early preseason ranking, CBS Sports
Florida sits at number one in almost every early ranking, and that comes down to continuity. Coach Todd Golden keeps six of his seven leading scorers and is among the teams retaining the most minutes in the country. In this era that is rare enough to be a story on its own.
Among the freshmen, Tyran Stokes at Kansas is the name that comes up everywhere. Bill Self called him as versatile a youngster as he has ever recruited. Caleb Holt went to Arizona, Jordan Smith Jr. to Arkansas, Jason Crowe Jr. to Missouri, Cameron Williams to Duke and Anthony Thompson to Ohio State.
And the lawsuits keep running. A judge in Colorado granted an injunction to players from the 2022 class in late July, but the appeals court stayed it three weeks later. Roddy Gayle, Tamin Lipsey, Malik Reneau and Tre White each came back through separate individual cases after that. If the Protect College Sports Act clears the House, that will be the last time that route works.