This afternoon, House Rules Committee set to vote on latest bill – in the face of widespread opposition – to send it to floor 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, slammed the latest version of the Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements (SCORE) Act ahead of a planned vote this week by the full House. Last week, the House Rules Committee released updated – and deeply flawed – text of the legislation and will vote on advancing the bill this afternoon. 

“This is a David and Goliath fight,” said Sen. Cantwell. “And the power 2 conferences are trying to rewrite the rules for the rest of colleges and universities that dictate playoff berths, control tv revenue and hold back athlete opportunities. Athletes and smaller schools should stop the new SCORE Act because the only ones scoring are private equity, a few big schools within the SEC and Big 10, and a few coaches with ridiculous payouts for nonperformance.”

In addition to keeping the original SCORE Act’s significantly flawed provisions — including repealing the 22 percent revenue share cap in the Grant House v. NCAA settlement, decreasing opportunities for women’s and Olympic sports and failing to inject new revenue into college athletics — the ‘new’ SCORE Act is even more of a danger to the future of college athletics than the original draft. Instead of addressing the concerns and opposition to the SCORE Act from athlete advocates, labor groups, antitrust experts, the Congressional Women’s Caucus, and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, the House Rules Committee’s text exacerbates the SCORE Act’s existing flaws and will hasten the concentration of control of college sports in the SEC and Big Ten Conferences. For example, the updated text:

• Rolls back athlete rights even further than the Committee-passed bill. The new SCORE Act gives the NCAA explicit authority to limit revenue sharing, restrict education-related benefits, and establish eligibility rules. It also strips athletes of their existing rights to enforce their contract and other rights under state laws.

• Gives the Power 2 conferences even more power than the Committee-passed bill. The new SCORE Act allows the Big Ten and SEC to dominate NCAA governance by eliminating the provision that at least 30 percent of the members of NCAA decision-making bodies must be from schools that are not among the 70 schools with the highest athletic revenue.

• Restores NCAA’s monopoly power the courts had struck down. The new SCORE Act restores the NCAA’s monopoly power that the Supreme Court struck down in Alston v. NCAA by allowing the NCAA to fix the price for what schools can provide athletes in education-related payments and other benefits, like computers, tutors, and other academic assistance.

• Preempts more state laws. The new SCORE Act would preempt states and public institutions from enacting health, safety, and academic protections for athletes. A school could not even limit the number of hours or conditions of athletic practice. The Act also would preempt long-standing state common law that allows athletes to enforce their contract and publicity rights

• Gives the NCAA even more antitrust immunity. The new SCORE Act expressly authorizes the NCAA to limit revenue sharing and education-related benefits to athletes, which would now be immunized from antitrust liability.

• Ensures athletes will never have labor law protections. Today, no student athlete is an employee of their school just by participating in sports. But athletes have always had labor laws as a backstop to prevent the NCAA, conferences, and schools from exploiting their labor. The new SCORE Act expands the employee status ban to ensure that athletes can never benefit from labor law protections by stating that athletes cannot be considered employees. As an example, athletes could be forced to devote more time to athletics than academics as a condition of playing sports and would have no legal way to restore the balance.

Sen. Cantwell has been deeply involved in the effort to fix college sports. In September, Sen. Cantwell, joined by co-sponsors Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), introduced the Student Athlete Fairness and Enforcement (SAFE) Act to codify athletes’ rights and protections in law, expand revenue for all schools, support women’s and Olympic sports and bring much-needed stability to the college sports system. In October, Sen. Cantwell joined former college and professional athletes and Sens. Booker and Blumenthal in warning that the SCORE Act would roll-back hard fought NIL rights and health protections, leave athletes vulnerable to unscrupulous agents, short-change women’s and Olympic sports and shut the door on collective bargaining rights.

On September 10th, Sen. Cantwell released a report showing how skyrocketing media rights payments have exacerbated a massive financial gap between traditional power conferences, especially the new Power 2—the SEC and Big Ten—and everyone else. In August, she wrote to the presidents and chancellors of more than 350 Division I universities and their governing bodies, warning about the dangers that the SCORE Act poses to the future of college athletics. And on July 14, Sen. Cantwell and Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R, WA-05) sent a letter strongly opposing the SCORE Act.  

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