Senate lawmakers passed a bipartisan bill to regulate college NIL deals and athlete transfers Monday night, though the measure still faces long odds of reaching President Trump.

The U.S. Senate voted 77-22 for the Protect College Sports Act, a measure led by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., after years of court-driven upheaval in college athletics.

The bill would create a federal framework for name, image, and likeness payments, place caps on what universities can pay athletes directly, set transfer rules, and give the NCAA limited protection from antitrust lawsuits when it carries out the new standards. Washington Examiner reporting laid out the Monday night vote and those core provisions.

Supporters cast the measure as the strongest effort yet to restore order after court cases rewrote NCAA rules and let student-athletes earn NIL money. A 2025 settlement in the House v. NCAA case already allowed colleges to share revenue directly with athletes. This bill would build on that system with extra guardrails.

Cruz says the bill protects underdogs and keeps teams alive

Cruz framed the vote as a defense of competitive balance. He recently pushed the legislation on ESPN’s College GameDay and spoke on the Senate floor ahead of the tally.

Cruz said:

"It’s [the bill] about protecting the underdog and ensuring that each and every team has the opportunity to develop and compete, and maybe even make it to the Final Four next season, but those stories only happen if those teams still exist,"

The transfer piece would let athletes make one undergraduate move without penalty and another for graduate school. Limited antitrust cover for the NCAA is meant to give schools and the association room to enforce the new federal rules without constant courtroom fights.

Power conferences that first resisted the bill later backed it. The Big Ten and Southeastern Conference issued a joint statement after talks with Cruz, Cantwell, Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., and their staffs.

The conferences said:

"The Big Ten Conference and Southeastern Conference support the Protect College Sports Act as currently drafted, following detailed and productive negotiations with Senators Cruz, Cantwell and [Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO)] and their respective staffs,"

They added: “We appreciate the substantial work that has gone into this effort.”

Murphy targets coach buyouts, not athlete pay

Not everyone welcomed the package. Opponents argued the bill fails to curb spending on coaches, athletic directors, media deals, and facilities even as it regulates athlete compensation. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., made that case on the floor before the vote.

Murphy said:

"Last year the buyouts for just three coaches at [Louisiana State University] totaled over $169 million, six times the annual operating deficit of the entire athletics program and so, if you want to know what’s driving the deficit at these big schools, it’s not simply the amount of money they’re paying the students,"

He continued: “Those numbers are dwarfed by the amount of money that’s going to coaches and to facilities.”

Supporters counter that the antitrust-protection language would bring stability after years of litigation. Critics reply it could make it harder for athletes to challenge compensation limits and other restrictions in court. Both arguments remain unresolved in the public record.

House calendar leaves a steep climb to Trump’s desk

Broad bipartisan support in the Senate does not guarantee final passage. The bill still faces an uphill fight to reach President Donald Trump before the current Congress ends. The House is not scheduled to return until after November’s midterm elections.

That timing squeeze is familiar to anyone watching Congress try to lock in policy. Lawmakers who want durable results often push to turn temporary wins into lasting statutes, as when Sen. Banks demanded Trump immigration policies become permanent law.

Even so, the Senate action shows a rare cross-aisle effort to impose common-sense limits on a system that courts left largely unmoored. Cruz and Cantwell spent months negotiating with major conferences that once opposed the text. The final draft won their endorsement and a lopsided floor vote.

Trump’s White House already has a record of clearing new federal standards when the facts line up. Readers tracking those moves have seen Trump approve new fuel economy standards ending Biden EV pressure and other regulatory resets.

Whether this college-sports package clears the remaining hurdles is an open question. What is not in doubt is the problem it targets: a post-court free-for-all that left smaller programs and competitive balance at risk while big-money spending on coaches and facilities continued unchecked.

Congressional friction over executive actions is nothing new. Recent Senate pushback on funding decisions has included senators denouncing a Trump pocket rescission of nearly $1B in illegal immigrant and DEI funds, proof that floor votes and conference talks rarely end the story.

For now, the Protect College Sports Act sits as a Senate-passed blueprint for NIL rules, transfer limits, payment caps, and limited NCAA legal cover. It builds directly on the 2025 revenue-sharing settlement and tries to keep underdog teams in the game rather than watching them disappear under unrestricted market pressure.

College sports needed adult supervision after the courts rewrote the rules. The Senate finally supplied some. Whether the House and the calendar allow President Trump to finish the job will decide if the underdogs Cruz described still get their shot.