Murphy Ahead of PCSA Vote: This Bill is a Long-Term Threat to College Athletics

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate ahead of a vote on final passage of the so-called Protect College Sports Act , sweeping legislation to grant the NCAA an unprecedented antitrust exemption, cap the earnings and organizing potential of college athletes, and codify into law a permanent imbalance of power between college athletes and athletic conferences, the NCAA and corporate executives profiting off of athletes’ talents. Murphy voiced his opposition to final passage of the bill and argued the PCSA may ultimately destabilize the college sports ecosystem in the long-term. Murphy debunked the claim that college sports is in ‘crisis’: “The facts don't back up that characterization of college sports…I know that there's more people than ever showing up to these games and watching the games. The Big 10 just signed a $13 billion contract to broadcast its games. The revenue of the NCAA broadly is at an all-time high. The SEC and the Big 10 are both making over a billion dollars. Women's sports is growing. 92,000 people recently filled a stadium to watch a women's volleyball match. Schools are adding, not subtracting, women's programs. In fact, more people are paying attention to college sports than ever before. College sports is growing, both on the men's and women's side. And so, what is this crisis?” Murphy stressed the PCSA wouldn’t get big money out of college sports, it would just limit athletes’ right to earn their fair share: “The bill does really nothing to stop the runaway overall costs of college athletics. In particular, some of the biggest drivers of costs being facilities and the salaries of adults … 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; those numbers are dwarfed by the amount of money that's going to coaches and to facilities. But yet, this bill constricts – only caps the money going to the players, does nothing to cap the money going to the coaches, does nothing to stop the continued billions of dollars going in to feed this facilities arms race.” Murphy hammered that the NCAA’s real motive is undoing historic gains in revenues for athletes so coaches, conferences, and corporate executives can reap the benefits for themselves: “The crisis, it appears to me, is pretty simple: young athletes who perform a service that would be worth billions in the free market are finally getting what they lawfully deserve. A system of exploitation, an illegal system of exploitation, in which the colleges and their industry allies colluded to keep as much of the 13 billion dollars that the college sports industry generates for themselves started to crumble because courts as high as the Supreme Court came to the inevitable conclusion that that system of exploitation was illegal. … and the industry had two choices: they could either work out a new set of rules with the athletes… or they could come to Congress and get their illegal system deemed legal. That's what they are essentially doing here today. We are taking a system that the Supreme Court said could not persist under our law, and we are changing the law to allow that illegal system to persist.” Murphy stressed that the NCAA, like all other industries, should be responsible for following the law and negotiate a fair agreement with athletes: “We could have done what happens in most industries, which is just say to the NCAA and to the colleges, tough luck. Congress isn't going to come in here and micromanage your relationship with the athletes. If you want to work something out, sit down and talk to the athletes about it. If you want rules that apply across the industry, then do what every other industry does, which is have a dialog with the workers.” Murphy reiterated that the PCSA hands massive giveaways to the NCAA: “I think that there are rules inside college athletics that don't make a lot of sense right now. Unlimited transfers, the potential ability for pro players to come back to college, these agent fees look ridiculous to me, but you don't need a bill of this sweeping scope to address what are a set of minor but important practices in college athletics that have gotten out of control. We could have … passed a very narrow bill here to address the agent issue and the transfer issue.” Murphy held firm that the current landscape is better than the system of exploitation the PCSA would implement: “We could have just said, you know what, Congress doesn't want to get involved in litigating the details of the arrangement between players and coaches in schools. You guys work that out, just like we require every other industry to do this.” In conclusion, Murphy warned that the PCSA may actually precipitate a long-term crisis in college sports, as athletes flee a system that exploits them: “In the end, this bill, if it passes and becomes law, is actually going to be a long-term threat to college athletics. … Students are not dumb. They're not going to sit in college sports with a cap on their earnings … They will find a way around college sports. That will be the primary impact of this artificial cap on compensation, this massive antitrust exemption for colleges, I think it may well, in the end, be the unwinding of college sports.” Sen. Murphy has been a leading voice of opposition to the so-called Protect College Sports Act (PCSA), standing with athletes, labor advocates, and civil rights groups to rally against the bill’s passage, as well as advocate for his College Athlete Right to Organize Act . He also appeared on Straight Shooter with Stephen A. Smith to garner support for athletes’ rights and fair compensation and published a joint Substack in opposition to the PCSA with former executive director of the National Football League Players Association DeMaurice Smith. A full transcript of Murphy’s remarks is available below. A full video of the speech is available here . The legislation that we're going to be voting on tonight is predicated on a simple idea: the idea that college sports is in crisis, and that it requires a fairly extraordinary act of legislative intervention to address this crisis. I'm speaking in opposition to this bill, and I think it's important to start by answering the question: Is college sports in crisis? Is it in chaos, as Senator Cruz is fond of saying? Well, the facts don't back up that characterization of college sports. I'm a huge college sports fan. I watch a lot of college basketball, a little bit less but still a lot of college football, and I know that there's more people than ever showing up to these games and watching the games. The Big 10 just signed a $13 billion contract to broadcast its games. The revenue of the NCAA broadly is at an all-time high. The SEC and the Big 10 are both making over a billion dollars. Women's sports are growing. 92,000 people recently filled a stadium to watch a women's volleyball match. Schools are adding, not subtracting, women's programs. In fact, more people are paying attention to college sports than ever before. College sports is growing, both on the men's and women's side. And so, what is this crisis? Well, the crisis, it appears to me, is pretty simple: young athletes who perform a service that would be worth billions in the free market are finally getting what they lawfully deserve. A system of exploitation, an illegal system of exploitation, in which the colleges and their industry allies colluded to keep as much of the 13 billion dollars that the college sports industry generates for themselves started to crumble because courts as high as the Supreme Court came to the inevitable conclusion that that system of exploitation was illegal. Justice Kavanaugh, in a 9-0 decision, said this: “The current NCAA model is suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges each year.” So this system of collusion by the colleges, designed to keep the compensation of athletes as low as possible, was ruled illegal. That's essentially what happened here, and the industry had two choices: they could either work out a new set of rules with the athletes—that's generally what has to happen if you want industry-wide rules that limit compensation, that limit the applicability of a free market. You have to negotiate with your employees, in this case, the athletes—or they could come to Congress and get their illegal system deemed legal. That's what they are essentially doing here today. We are taking a system that the Supreme Court said could not persist under our law, and we are changing the law to allow that illegal system to persist. How do we know that this bill is about solving that narrow crisis that I identified—that crisis of college athletes finally making money, and the adults in charge of the system not liking that the kids were making money? Well, the first way we know that is that the bill does really nothing to stop the runaway overall costs of college athletics, in particular, some of the biggest drivers of costs: facilities and the salaries of adults. Let's just take one example, and I see my friend from Louisiana is on the floor currently. Just last week, LSU's president said that the school's sports program is projected to carry a 26 million dollar deficit, and the president said we've got to stop that bleeding, 26 million dollar deficit. But LSU just agreed to pay their new coach Lane Kiffin 91 million dollars over seven years, along with other bonuses to him like 65 hours of private jet travel, temporary housing, and courtesy vehicles. LSU also just paid a buyout of over 53 million dollars to the coach they fired. In fact, last year the buyouts for just three coaches totaled over 169 million dollars, [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; those numbers are dwarfed by the amount of money that's going to coaches and to facilities. But yet, this bill only caps the money going to the players, does nothing to cap the money going to the coaches, and does nothing to stop the continued billions of dollars going in to feed this facility's arms race. Second, what about the antitrust exemption? Why is that in the bill? Well, certainly not to help athletes. This antitrust exemption will allow schools, in some cases, to continue their practices that compromise athlete safety, because now they have a broad antitrust exemption to do that. Perhaps we'll pass an amendment that will help with that later today. What it primarily is in the bill for is to allow the schools to be able to bargain collectively in order to get a better TV deal. If the schools don't have to worry about antitrust law, one of the things they can do is join together across conferences to bargain for additional TV revenue. And in this bill, only 1/5 of the revenue that comes in will have to be shared with the athletes, whereas in the professional leagues, about 50% of the revenue, including TV revenue, goes to the athletes. So the antitrust exemption allows the schools to make a whole lot more money, and other provisions in the bill allow the schools to keep that money for themselves rather than share it in the same way that professional leagues might share it with the athletes. And then, what about the transfer restrictions in the bill? Why do those only apply to players? I admit that the current system in which players can move from one school to the next every year is probably not in the best long-term interests of the sport. But if the goal was really to control costs, that provision would apply to coaches as well. Because one of the ways that costs go up is that coaches can freely move after every season from one program to the other, bidding schools against each other. This bill says that a coach can't leave in the middle of the season, but that almost never happens. The reality is, this bill only says players can only transfer once without penalty. It doesn't say anything about coaches. As I said, I think that there are rules inside college athletics that don't make a lot of sense right now. Unlimited transfers, the potential ability for pro players to come back to college, these agent fees look ridiculous to me, but you don't need a bill of this sweeping scope to address what are a set of minor but important practices in college athletics that have gotten out of control. We could have either passed a very narrow bill here to address the agent issue and the transfer issue, or we could have done what happens in most industries, which is just say to the NCAA and to the colleges: tough luck, congress isn't going to come in here and micromanage your relationship with the athletes. If you want to work something out, sit down and talk to the athletes about it. If you want rules that apply across the industry, then do what every other industry does, which is have a dialog with the workers. Now, whether you want to admit that the athletes are workers or not, the Supreme Court has basically ruled that they need to be treated as such for compensation purposes, and so we had two other options besides this sweeping bill that, in my belief, preserves this system of exploitation. We could have either passed a much more narrow bill, that I think would have gotten even broader consensus here and would have had an easier time passing the House, or we could have just said, you know what, Congress doesn't want to get involved in litigating the details of the arrangement between players and coaches in schools. You guys work that out, just like we require every other industry to do this. I think, in the end, this bill, if it passes and becomes law, is actually going to be a long-term threat to college athletics. And I'll just end here. In the short run, I get it. It makes coaches' lives easier. They don't have to worry about players leaving if they're treated badly, if they're not compensated adequately. By Congress stepping in and dictating the terms with which students can play college athletics, it empowers coaches. But especially in football, where every single additional year you play, you are doing more damage to your brain, more damage to your ability to make money once you get into the pros, students are not dumb. They're not going to sit in college sports with a cap on their earnings and currently an inability to get to the pros until they have played three years of amateur athletics. They will find a way around college sports. That will be the primary impact of this artificial cap on compensation, this massive antitrust exemption for colleges, I think it may well, in the end, be the unwinding of college sports. The way to save college sports was to admit that these kids provide an incredibly valuable service, as the Supreme Court has judged as well, and they deserve to be fairly compensated. That, in the long run, would have been the best way to make sure that we preserve college sports, which I agree with my colleagues is worth preserving. One of the most basic, fundamental American pastimes: the ability for us to come together, no matter our religion, our race, our political affiliation, to root for our state's team—that binds us together as Americans. And in the end, I think this bill—maybe not in the first few years, but in the long run—is a greater threat to the stability of college sports than doing nothing. I yield the floor.