Evaluating the complexities of Congress tackling NIL, what’s next for NCAA after Ted Cruz hearing

The NCAA took to Washington DC once again on Tuesday as Senator Ted Cruz and collegiate athletics biggest decision makers got together on Capitol Hill in an attempt to “find consensus and pass bipartisan legislation” surrounding NIL.

Cruz was joined by former Alabama head football coach Nick Saban, the Cavinder Twins, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne, The Collective Association president Russell White, and NIL attorney Darren Heitner for a roundtable. Striving to find some sort of uniformity and regulations amid the current chaos surrounding college athletics.

On3’s Pete Nakos recently wrote about Saban’s role in the House Education & The Workforce Committee’s legislative hearing and joined The Paul Finebaum Show on Tuesday to discuss Tuesday’s events. Asked if the most recent lobbying has moved the needle at all towards consistent nationwide NIL legislation.

“If you asked me about this in July I would’ve said no, but Senator Ted Cruz was pretty honest today that he thinks it’s a 50-50 chance they get something done,” Nakos said. “And I don’t want to be overly optimistic here Paul, but I think that there is actually some interest in getting a very narrow college sports bill kind of to the floor for a vote in the next two months before the presidential cycle really ramps up. Now what would that include?”

“I think today the takeaways were that a lot of folks, athletic director Greg Byrne I believe and Nick Saban, talked about revenue sharing. At the same time they don’t want athletes being employees and that could be a hurdle. The other thing to watch here too is you have the presidential election cycle coming up and with that maybe the GOP takes over Congress and then do we see something come from that,” Nakos explained. “So I think that the this is another setting the stage and I think only time will tell, but maybe a little bit more positivity today than in time’s past.”

Last July a similar hearing was held in the nation’s capital in an attempt to add nationwide, uniform legislation surrounding NIL. But with Dartmouth‘s men’s basketball team voting to form a union last week, the NCAA facing preliminary injunctions in lawsuits involving NIL and the transfer portal, and several other pressing issues mounting in college sports it’s clear that progress had not been made.

“A lot needs to happen for really any movement, but there were moments today where they were speaking about commonality and do the legislators and politicians take those little bits and try to come up with something that is then circulated into yet another bill,” Nakos said. “I think time will tell, I’m not officially sold on it, but that’s obviously what they’re peddling in this round table.”

Many are curious if the most recent hearing will bear results compared to the last one in 2023, as Nakos forecasted what’s next following Tuesday’s deliberations.

“So Senator Ted Cruz put up a discussion draft this summer which was really NCAA-friendly, codified that athletes aren’t employees. That never made it to the floor, never really went into more than a discussion draft. Obviously no NIL bill has ever come up for a vote, so does Ted Cruz and a few of his fellow senators look at that from today and try to kind of craft a bill that he thinks will get some bipartisan support?” Nakos asked. “That would probably include that athletes aren’t employees but also start to put in some language that athletes should earn a share of revenue and there’s a few on the Democratic side who really want some stipulations about athlete health and wellness.”

There’s no question that Congress should work with the NCAA and do its part in fixing the many issues that have recently corrupted the college sports landscape. It’s still unknown where problems surrounding NIL and collegiate athletics rank among the many other issues that are currently pressing the government, but NIL is surely not at the top of the list.

“So if that kind of could come together, then I think we could see some movement. But at the same time Paul there’s a presidential election coming, there’s things going on all over the world. It’s 50-50 as Ted Cruz said, but I think that the percentage is probably lower than that,” Nakos concluded.