The commissioners of the NCAA’s Power Four conferences and dozens of athletic directors from the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12, and coaches and players lobbied lawmakers on Capitol Hill for legislation to standardize name, image and likeness rules and other elements of the college sports landscape
With NCAA settlement pending, Power Four conference stakeholders lobby lawmakers on Capitol HillBy STEPHEN WHYNOAP Sports WriterThe Associated PressWASHINGTON
WASHINGTON (AP) — While a federal judge considers whether to approve a massive NCAA settlement that would pay athletes over $2 billion and pave the way for even more spending, a large group of industry officials returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to lobby lawmakers on legislation to land some antitrust protection for some of the final vestiges of college athletics’ amateurism model.
Commissioners of the Power Four conferences, dozens of athletic directors from the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12, and even some coaches and players spent hours meeting with members of Congress. There was no firm conclusion to the talks, but multiple stakeholders involved came out of them with positive takeaways.
“We had great dialogue throughout the day, so I’m very optimistic we can get there,” Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said. “The common denominator on the Hill is that everyone has a great passion for collegiate athletics. They want to see something that’s sustainable moving forward.”
A federal judge held a final hearing Monday on the settlement of a $2.8 billion class-action antitrust lawsuit filed by athletes against the NCAA and its largest conferences, which was approved by the defendants and plaintiffs in May 2024. U.S. Judge Claudia Wilken must give full approval before the terms can go into effect as soon as July 1.
“I think that was a piece of being able to go back to our elected officials and say that we’re trying to do our part,” Louisville athletic director Josh Heird said. “We’re going to ante up and pay $2.8 billion in back damages. We’re going to find a way to fund this $20.5 million revenue sharing. And so with that, in order to get to that goal line, now we need some help from our elected officials.”
Among those who took part were Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian, Auburn men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl fresh off a March Madness trip to the Final Four and Vanderbilt women’s basketball coach Shea Ralph.
Discussions revolved around some antitrust protection, standardizing rules nationwide for name, image and likeness (NIL) payments, the transfer portal and whether college athletes should be considered employees.
“What are the downstream problems in addition to the notion that there’s just benefits or a set of hurdles to have to be overcome?” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said. “We’ve educated, I think, effectively members of the House and Senate, and we need to keep pushing and to do that with our universities is much healthier than simply doing that as commissioners and doing so in a coordinated way across the four conferences.”
Yormark said the current volume of player movement through the transfer portal is “unsustainable” and cautioned that lawmakers should step up sooner than later to calm that chaos and create national standards.
“Everyone knows there’s a sense of urgency,” Yormark said. “Time is not on our side, so we have to move quickly and swiftly.”
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