Save college sports act jammed up in Congress

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Though NCAA officials and university presidents may believe they have allies in Congress who want to fix their problems, expecting Congress to actually do something ignored the underlying reality of our system.

When you ask for a political solution, you will get politics whether you like it or not.

And what do you know? Just when it seemed like the PCSA was headed for a floor vote, politics happened in a big way.

Three Republican senators filed an amendment to cram some language in the bill to make quadruple sure transgender athletes can't play college sports anymore — a completely unrelated issue to what the bill is supposed to do. Another Republican senator, Louisiana's John Kennedy, lodged an objection and was making noise about adding a provision to cap ticket price increases. Ashley Moody, a senator from Florida, filed an amendment that would exempt two schools in her state, Florida State and Miami, from the provision of the original bill that called for a mandatory five-year period of independence if they went from one power conference to another. More amendments are expected in September.

The Congressional Black Caucus is now opposing the bill, saying it can't support "federal protections and legal certainty to powerful athletic institutions while these same institutions remained largely silent as Black voting rights and Black political representation came under unprecedented attack."

Even a so-called bipartisan bill is getting pummeled from the left and right.

For better or worse, this is the American system. Its strength is that everyone gets a say on a piece of legislation like this. That's also its weakness.

Every amendment serves someone's political agenda. And every amendment makes the bill fatter and more complicated, risking more opposition.

That's why, when SEC commissioner Greg Sankey says college sports has "nonpartisan issues that deserve a nonpartisan solution," sometimes you wonder what planet he's living on.

Unregulated NIL and unfavorable eligibility rulings are inconvenient for college sports, but they are not a national emergency. When something really matters in Washington, one side eventually gives in and things get done. The luxury items usually just become background noise for the circus that helps politicians create social media clips and raise money for their next campaign.

A comprehensive college sports bill with more than 100 pages, creating regulations in areas where the federal government doesn't belong, was not the right strategy.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn/Texas Tech/Cincinnati football coach, had it right. He advocated for a skinny bill that would simply give the NCAA protections to manage transfer portal rules and player eligibility without getting sued.