Louisiana Voice

By Paul Spillman

The Senate began its August recess without taking a floor vote on the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA). The bill had seemingly risen from the mat after the SEC and Big Ten conferences reversed course and agreed to support it. But a barrage of proposed amendments knocked it out for good. It is unclear whether the Senate will take up the bill in September, though sponsors believe it will.

Passage of the PCSA was believed to be heavily dependent on the two biggest conferences for support and the SEC and the Big Ten allowed two “final deadlines” to pass knocking out any chances of the bill getting a floor vote. Then late Friday of last week both conferences suddenly threw their support behind the legislation. Senate Majority leader John Thune filed for cloture and sponsors hoped the bill would be voted on before the August recess. But in the last few days with mounting pressure to address other priorities and too many amendments to consider proponents ran out of time.

Why did the SEC and the Big Ten reverse course? It wasn’t acknowledged by either conference but it may have had a lot to do with the latest injunction against the NCAA issued earlier that same Friday by federal district court judge Charlotte Sweeny in Denver. Continuing to oppose legislation in light of the most recent ruling would have been a bad look for both conferences.

What is this latest injunction? This past June, in response to numerous lawsuits to regain eligibility, the NCAA voted on new eligibility rules, allowing for five years of eligibility to be used over a five year period beginning at high school graduation or age 19 and made it effective beginning in 2027.

Previously college athletes had four years of eligibility to be used over a five year period. But as is the wont of the NCAA there were numerous exemptions either granted or denied for seemingly random and inconsistent reasons. And in this case the NCAA once again acted inconsistently – unnecessarily – without anticipating the obvious result. Because of Covid the NCAA granted students in school at that time or who graduated high school in spring 2021 a fifth year of eligibility to replace the “lost” Covid year. In effect, that exemption granted athletes going back to the 2018 class who were still in college in 2021 a fifth year of eligibility. With the new eligibility rules taking effect next year, athletes in their fourth year of eligibility this year – who graduated high school in 2023 – will get a fifth year of eligibility in 2027. So every class since 2018 has had five years of eligibility. Except one.

Who does that leave out? Students who graduated high school in 2022 and began college in the fall of that year. Those students didn’t get the extra year for Covid and had their four years of eligibility expire this past spring. Why did that class alone not get an extra year of eligibility? The NCAA decided that since the academic year was over when it approved new eligibility rules in June it would just be too much trouble to find a way to work that out, so arbitrarily ruled that class doesn’t get an extra year.

Did anyone associated with the NCAA anticipate this debacle? No, or they didn’t care enough to act, and that’s not new. Time and time again over the years the NCAA has made inconsistent and apparently random rulings. It’s the reason courts now have no respect whatsoever for the NCAA and it needs Congress for a get-out-of-jail-free card. This decision – to create new eligibility rules that ignored the practical reality of singling out one class – was immediately challenged by several different (former) athletes in several different jurisdictions. Sweeny is the first to issue a ruling and she made it class action. Every college athlete from the 2022 class who completed their eligibility in the spring of this year is now eligible for the 2026-27 athletic calendar.

Texas football has already cashed in, returning a highly regarded offensive lineman who nevertheless went undrafted and signed a free agent NFL contract. It is unlikely LSU football will sign anyone. The roster for this year is set and the money allocated. And the general consensus is Kiffin has assembled a boatload of talent. Will Wade and LSU basketball, on the other hand, will certainly seek to take advantage of this injunction as Wade is rebuilding an LSU team from scratch and still needs a point guard.

The collective groan from all of college sports over another injunction and the as yet unknown fallout – the injunction was immediately appealed but may not be heard until the fall and the NCAA doesn’t have a great track record anyway – probably pushed the two major conferences off the fence.

The final language of the bill included all the points detailed previously: an antitrust exemption, a “hard cap” on spending, eligibility limits, allows for pooling of media rights though makes participation voluntary, prevents private equity from outright purchasing brands, limits the size of conferences and places a heavy burden on schools that wish to change conferences, and provides for grants to historically black colleges and universities to upgrade their media facilities and programs to better market themselves.

The legislation also includes the “Lane Kiffin rule” preventing coaches leaving one school and taking a job at another school in the same season. That works for the NFL for a variety of reasons, including that the draft and free agency come after the Superbowl. But the NCAA lacks that much common sense or concern. The transfer portal for football, as an example, opens during the season. Any school would naturally want its new head coach in place to recruit athletes out of the portal.

As Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said at Big Ten media days, “When you ask for help you don’t always get the help you ask for.” Most universities wanted a “skinny” bill, basically granting the NCAA an antitrust exemption and nothing more. Instead they’re getting the Protect College Sports Act.

Debate over legislation that restricts capitalism and promotes socialistic practices – for the common good, of course – can be saved for another time.

Meanwhile, LSU President Dr. Wade Rousse gathered high-dollar donors to a meeting at the Governor’s Mansion earlier in the week to unveil an innovative funding model for LSU, but the NDA mindset is standard operating procedure in Louisiana politics and even public universities. Few details were made available to the common man. But the end result is equity. Maybe not traditional private equity, which the SEC opposes. It may be through some kind of spin-off LLC. But LSU is selling its brand to investors and seeking a rumored $100M as a startup. It is just one among many schools. Some 40 universities have reportedly either begun or are considering a similar model.

A rapidly changing landscape is doing what the NCAA has refused to do – it is separating the revenue producers from the non-revenue producers, both among sports and among universities. The universities that produce the revenue or can raise the money will support its non-revenue sports, for men and women athletes. Other colleges and universities can’t do that without a subsidy, which it usually gets from its general fund but isn’t enough to keep up in today’s world. And some colleges don’t have any revenue producing sports at all. All of this will not continue to exist under one banner of NCAA. The PCSA, if eventually made law, may extend its life but the NCAA is on borrowed time even as the bell rings for another round of college sports