What we learned as revenue sharing, employment take center stage at Sen. Ted Cruz's NIL roundtable

Speaking to reporters this past fall, Senator Ted Cruz put the odds of Congress passing a bipartisan college sports bill at 60-40.

After Tuesday’s roundtable discussion on Capitol Hill, he lowered those to 50-50, per Yahoo Sports. After one of the more productive conversations in recent memory on legislation surrounding college athletics, specifically on revenue sharing and employment, the odds dropping could be discouraging.

But it’s reality.

Time is running out. The 2024 presidential election cycle is coming. Cruz estimated Congress has a two-month window to pass legislation before time runs out. So the question turns to whether there is finally real momentum on Capitol Hill for NIL reform. And could politicians make a move quickly?

“The clock is running,” Cruz said Tuesday after his roundtable finished, per the Associated Press. “It’s not too late to get it done. But we’re getting close to it being too late to get it done. I still think there are elements there of getting bipartisan agreement. We just have not been able to get everyone to the table to sign off.”

Nick Saban for revenue sharing, no employment

Securing Congressional oversight still seems like a long shot, despite the resurgence of interest. Tuesday’s panel also allowed former Alabama head coach Nick Saban to share his thoughts on the current college sports landscape. Saban, along with Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne and ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips, support a model where athletes benefit from revenue sharing but are not classified as employees.

“I’m for student-athletes being able to share in some of this revenue, and I think the No. 1 solution to all this is if we could have some kind of a revenue sharing proposition that did not make student-athletes employees,” the recently retired Tide head coach said. “It would be equal in all institutions. In other words, somebody couldn’t go out and raise more money at one school to create a competitive advantage from another. And boosters could then channel their resources back into the institution rather than into a collective.”

Since Saban retired in January, he has not held a press conference. Instead, he’s spoken with ESPN several times and appeared at a few events. Tuesday provided the platform for one of the greatest college football coaches in the sport’s history to explain why he stepped down and his problems with the current model.

He provided an anecdote about his wife, Miss Terry, telling him that players value dollars over development. Saban was also frank about trying to compete in college football, saying programs with the most money can buy the most players will have the best opportunity to win.

“All the things that I believed in for all these years, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics,” the Alabama coaching legend answered Cruz when asked if the college sports enterprise played a role in his decision to retire.

Employment question looming over NCAA

The Dartmouth men’s basketball team voted to form a union last week, becoming the first unionized college athletes. But the Big Green is not the only employment threat the NCAA is facing.

Legal pressures continue to mount against the NCAA, which currently faces preliminary injunctions in lawsuits involving NIL and the transfer portal. In the Johnson v. NCAA lawsuit, the plaintiffs are asking athletes to be deemed employees subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Another NLRB trial alleging USC, the Pac-12 Conference and the NCAA as joint employers of USC’s football and men’s and women’s basketball players is playing out in Los Angeles.

“It’s the Olympic sports that would be in jeopardy – men and women,” Byrne said. “If you look at the numbers for us at the University of Alabama with our 19 sports outside of football and men’s basketball, we lost collectively almost $40 million. And we funded that through our revenue from our football and men’s basketball standpoint. So, which ones specifically? I’m just saying this in general. If I’m a swimming athlete, if I’m a tennis, a track athlete – any of those sports that are really important to our universities and we want to compete in them – but there will also have to be decisions made because there is not an unlimited supply of money that some believe.”

Employment is the latest threat to the NCAA enterprise. Previously, it was athletes earning NIL dollars or institutions paying players revenue. One already exists while the other appears to be only months away. Congressional legislation codifying that athletes are not employees would protect the NCAA from the NLRB and outside lawsuits.

NCAA President Charlie Baker told a group of reporters in Washington, D.C., in February that “95%” of athletes would be endangered by any court ruling declaring them employees of universities.

Phillips expressed concern that employment could cut athletic programs at an aggressive pace. Many labor experts do not know what impacts an employment model would have on Title IX.

“The funding of a department for 22 sports, 28 sports comes from two sports,” Phillips said. “In generalities, 85% comes from the sport of football and nearly 15% comes from men’s basketball. We can pay those athletes. Certainly, we can pay those athletes. And then we can pay from a Title IX standpoint the equivalent number of female athletes. So, 185, 15, 100 or whatever number you want on the men’s side. And then you can go from about 28 sports to about six sports in the matter of one fiscal year.

“I don’t know what’s important. What’s important in higher education? I think it’s access and affordability to higher education and that’s what we’re able to do.”

Can Congress push through college sports legislation?

Throughout Tuesday’s roundtable, several senators made appearances. Senator Joe Manchin said he believed the current state of college sports would destroy the student-athlete. Senator Marsha Blackburn made a quick appearance, talking about the re-introduction of the NCAA Accountability Act.

Senator Jerry Moran has long been involved in the push for collegiate sports legislation. He was encouraged by the commonality shared by panelists at Cruz’s roundtable. Sources have indicated to On3 in recent days that Moran and Cruz have held conversations with Senators Richard Blumenthal and Cory Booker about college sports legislation.

“I loved hearing that there was a lot of commonality here,” Moran said during Tuesday’s roundtable. “In four years of trying to figure out legislative effort, we’re this close. And if you all can help us – everyone tell us what they can give and what they can take – to get us that much closer. I think a bill is doable. The evidence is there that it’s more needed.

“My message now is that maybe it didn’t take four years, eight years and it took something longer, but this is the moment to strike. Please help us close that gap and get this done.”

A ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Cruz has the position and political clout to push through legislation. But deeming athletes not employees could hold up the bill’s process.

The next steps for the Texas senator could be to revise the discussion draft he released in July that would ensure athletes are not employees and include a state law preemption. The bill would bar states from enacting laws on compensation, employment status, athlete eligibility or NIL.

There is still a divide between Democrats and Republicans on who should govern the future of college sports. Democrats believe in an outside government entity overseeing college sports, while Republicans support the NCAA remaining in charge.

Will Congress act in the next two months? Only time will now tell, but the clock is ticking.