Deadline: SEC, Big Ten wait on ‘Protect College Sports Act’ updates as August break approaches

TAMPA, FL – While the SEC held its annual kickoff game for the upcoming football season this week in Florida, a big conversation was happening in Washington, DC, about the ‘Protect College Sports Act’.

After being referred to the Senate Commerce Committee in June, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) ran against the timing of the legislation aimed at creating guardrails around the NIL, eligibility issues, transfers and conference reorganization, with the SEC and the Big Ten not providing their support for the bill in its current form.

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The bipartisan bill was created largely to help navigate college athletics back to reality, and out of the courts. After years of lobbying Congress for aid, which led to the creation of the SCORE Act before this latest bill, there is growing disagreement among organizations about how much aid is actually being sought at the federal level.

After meeting several times this week, the revisions currently being discussed have not been presented at any conference since Thursday evening.

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Clearly, time is of the essence, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Thursday afternoon, noting that it doesn’t look like it will make it to the Senate floor before Congress takes its August recess.

According to sources close to the situation in Washington, Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell are still working to get the bill to the Senate floor before recess, while continuing to review the legislation with the SEC and Big Ten.

Also, there has been a push back on the idea that the bill is dead with news that it could be voted on in August.

“They worked on the language all night, and that’s probably not how they would have spent their Thursday night if there wasn’t an opportunity,” said a Seni spokesperson. Maria Cantwell Ansley Lacitis told Fox News/OutKick.

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The Big Ten, the SEC is waiting to see the rule revisions discussed

Although the SEC and Big Ten conferences have repeatedly asked for congressional help, both feel that the current bill unfairly puts them in a corner, especially if both are not allowed to add more schools in the future.

In addition to previously reported issues, the clause regarding the consolidation of media rights has left a bad breath in the mouths of conference leaders from the SEC and Big Ten, with some expressing their displeasure that the current form will result in them losing money in future television rights deals.

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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., attends a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee meeting on the Protect College Sports Act and a joint run at the Russell Building on June 10, 2026. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

During an interview with OutKick on Wednesday afternoon in Tampa, where he was asked how realistic the August timeline is, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey indicated that if this were to drag on until Congress returns, there will be more important issues to be discussed in the House and Senate.

“I consider it a milestone (August timeline), August break,” Sankey noted. “Congress will come back in September. Then when they’re done in September, you have the budget battles, we’ve seen how those play out. So, it’s important to try to keep moving, that’s been part of our communication, and there’s been a lot of energy and effort used by senators, which we appreciate, to try to make changes.

“I think the truth is, if the bill is produced and developed, and finally signed into law, the idea will be that we solve those problems. And, the Congress will go to taxes, funded or anything, international problems. You just make a list, they have many important problems, and they are not going to close the gaps or solve the problems. That’s why since the act was created to focus on common sense, we focus on what is common. It is manageable. There is energy and effort in that, but that does not mean that we are at the end.”

If both felt that the consolidation of media rights was in fact ‘voluntary’, which both Cruz and Cantwell said it was, then there might have been more support from congressmen.

But, for now, the SEC and the Big Ten are waiting to see if their vision for changes in the bill will really come true, with updates that neither side has seen since Thursday evening, as previously reported.

Will the ‘Protect College Sports Act’ succeed?

There is no doubt in the eyes of congressional officials and congressional leaders in Washington that work is being done to get this bill to the Senate floor.

The main problem was how the members of parliament could get such a difficult issue into a bill that covers 100 pages, and the problems that are prevalent in all college athletics.

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But, there was always going to be a problem with time.

And, if you add in potential limits to conference expansion and revenue sharing, there would be roadblocks.

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While the work continues to try to put this law on the floor of the Senate for a vote, the House is a different story as the mid-term continues, even if the review is presented to the leaders of the congress, as well as the SEC and the Big Ten, it does not mean that we get a signed bill.

But, by the time this makes it to the floor of the Senate, whenever that is, there will likely be another lawsuit filed regarding the player’s eligibility.

Or, as we like to call it in the college athletic world, ‘Just a day that ends in a Y’.