Recent court rulings regarding a narrow band of “professional” players being allowed to return to collegiate athletic competition, combined with the continued chaos caused by court rulings, regulatory rulings, and continued tort pressure makes it more important that Congress act soon.
Where We were and What’s Going on Now
Back in the first article we did a review and survey of the current Senate legislation regarding the protection or actual re-establishment of collegiate athletics into what resembles a pre-2014/2015 configuration with
a few athlete benefits and protections tossed in. Protect College Sports Act of 2026 – GC Summary
Three Actions and Court Rulings That Changed Everything
The Transfer Portal
There was always an ability for a player to transfer from one program to another, but the rules were very strict, unless a player had graduated, they had to sit out a year, and of course the associated university/college had to accept the player as a student of some sort.
In 2018, as the deluge of lawsuits began to grow the NCAA instituted a uniform method of allowing athletes to manage and announce their desire to transfer out of program. There have been three court rulings that have actually changed the character of the original portal intent.
The first was on December 13, 2023. A Temporary Restraining Order was issued by U.S. District Court Judge John Bailey in the Northern District of West Virginia. It directly affected the limited number of transfers and the waiting period. The NCAA reacted to the ruling by changing the Portal Rules presumably they thought a protracted and expensive court fight would be lost.
The second happened just this month in August, where “U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney granted a class-wide preliminary injunction giving high school class of 2022 athletes who exhausted their four years of eligibility a fifth year for the 2026–27 season” (Summary by CoPilot) and then a follow-on decision by District Court Judge William Jorden that issued a restraining order that allowed several players who had gone pro to return to college sports, enter the portal and play out their previously surrendered eligibility.
This occurred on August 16th and there are issues reshaping the order, and additional filings because the SEC and B1G have both protested the TRO and issued rules forbidding teams in their conferences from “hiring” former professional athletes. There have been immediate court reactions from several directions.
Links of Interest:
Several NFL rookies offered lifeline to return to college football for 5th season
Louisiana judge rules SEC cannot punish programs for playing ex-pros
Texas, Louisiana judges rule against SEC, NCAA, opening return for players on NFL rosters
Greg Sankey pushes back on professional athletes returning to college sports – Louisiana Sports
O’Bannon – Establishment of NIL
For those of you who forgot the O’Bannon vs. NCAA ruling as the case proceeded through the courts in 2014 and 2015, CoPilot characterizes it in its summary: “In short, O’Bannon v. NCAA was a turning point in U.S. college sports, challenging the legal and economic foundations of amateurism and paving the way for modern NIL compensation. “
Alston – Solidifying NIL and Finding the NCAA an unregulated monopoly
In 2021, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the District Court that found that the NCAA was violating anti-trust rules regarding several issues compensation being one of them, sealed the deal. 20-512 National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Alston (06/21/2021) Along with the solidifying of the NIL issue and the NCAA’s ability to govern it, the Alston decision opened the door for the unregulated flood of media money into whatever organization could negotiate a contract whether it be individuals, individual teams (like Notre Dame), and conferences. It unhorsed the NCAA in managing and maintaining the revenue flows from media contracts.
The Chaos
Before we get to the current status of the Protect College Sports Act of 2026 (PCSA) legislation, we need to make some conclusions over what is happening at various levels.
The first problem is that NIL compensation morphed from allowing external endorsement contracts to individual athletes (that the NCAA forbid prior to the ruling) to actual monetary compensation for college athletes beyond external promotional deals.
The second problem involved the character of the portal and what has become total free agency between programs, where star athletes are competing differing programs against each other on promised “NIL” compensation. Program recruitment and retention have become a multi-million (maybe billion) dollar business. Many athletes are no longer actually directly attached to academic matriculation for their participation in the athletic sport.
The third problem is the nature of total free agency. The transfer portal gives them unlimited numbers of programs to play for within their current five-year eligibility, and if you count injury year awards, and special rulings, that experience is going to grow as well as the relative age of the players.
The fourth (but probably not the final) problem is that now courts are edging closer and closer to completely removing eligibility limits on players. If you think about the very tiny percentage of professional basketball players, and the larger but still small number of football players we can see where this leads; namely a professional league operating out of colleges and universities in which players remain until their bodies give out or they lose the desire to play that sport.
The Possibilities
Where is this all headed? Across many programs and conferences, we are seeing a partial professionalization of athletic departments in revenue generating programs. That lays the groundwork for a probable full professionalization of programs dominated by football and men’s basketball money.
Some programs will have the excess “profit” to fund non-revenue sports enough to meet required guidelines (Title IX that mandates a balance between men’s and women’s sports) but many football, and basketball programs barely pay for themselves and some are actually partially funded by student fees and solicited donations from alumni and other sponsors.
The imbalanced condition will inevitably cause a sorting of programs into conferences that can support more professionalized sports, and others who can only maintain the “traditional” concept of collegiate athletics. The fissures between those program capabilities are not neatly defined between FBS programs.
Will Super League Realignment Happen?
Barring any legislation that provides the NCAA with an anti-trust exemption and legislatively based regulations, it is inevitable that the Power 2 conferences of the SEC and B1G will begin to form a natural gravitation well. They already host most of the top money-making programs with the exception of Notre Dame which we looked up and added as an * at #4, the list includes 18 SEC and B1G programs, and only two ACC programs (Florida St. and Clemson).
- Texas – $352.5M – SEC
- Ohio State – $336.1M – B1G
- Tennessee – $304.1M – SEC
*4. Notre Dame – $289.6M – IND - Michigan – $275.8M – B1G
- Alabama – $267.4M – SEC
- Texas A&M – $266.4M – SEC
- Penn State – $254.9M – B1G
- Georgia – $233.5M – SEC
*9. Miami – FL – $230.48M – ACC - LSU – $223.5M – SEC
- Nebraska – $215.1M – B1G
- Florida State – $211.9M – ACC
- Oklahoma – $205.7M – SEC
- South Carolina – $204.6M – SEC
- Clemson – $198.6M – ACC
- Wisconsin – $197.9M – B1G
- Arkansas – $195.9M – SEC
- Illinois – $194.8M – B1G
- Oregon – $185.4M – B1G
- Kentucky – $185.1M – SEC
- Missouri – $181.9M – SEC
(Numbers supplied by CoPilot – best listed numbers for the 2024-2025 seasons)
Virginia Tech doesn’t appear until #29 at $161.2M which is just slightly ahead of UVA at $155.1M. If you put the Notre Dame and Miami insertions into the mix, that puts Tech at #31st in revenue. Money doesn’t mean everything in the way of championships and the like, but it doesn’t take a long time to sort out who finishes where in voting, record, bowl bids, and playoff chances.
Eventually if nothing legislative is done to change the natural results of the revenue flows via the media rights (nothing can be done regarding ticket revenues and voluntary contributions) the conferences will eventually look to sort themselves out into more advantageous groupings to maximize media revenue flow to a revenue model based on individual program desires. Notre Dame throws a small kink in the rope, but their non-football sports all compete in the ACC, and their football schedule, in order to continue as independents includes a minimum of ACC opponents every season. ACC announces Notre Dame football opponents through 2037
The realignment bug has settled for a while, but without some serious NCAA control (via a congressionally approved anti-trust exemption) the sorting and re-sorting will begin again, in earnest. The lower revenue teams will struggle to compete for talent, media exposure, and their gate revenue will remain relatively flat. They just won’t be able to keep up and present more than the occasional cupcake upset to any UltraPower 2 teams that they schedule.
The Senate Hurries Up and Waits
With all of this sort of mayhem brewing behind the scenes, and leaking out of the edges of the dam, where in the legislative process is the current PCSA in the Byzantine process of creating legislative sausage?
CoPilot give a summary that best describes the situation:
“The Protect College Sports Act is currently awaiting a Senate floor vote following committee approval. If successful, it will proceed to the House (if not already introduced there) and ultimately to the President for enactment U.S. Senate+1.
This legislative process ensures that the bill is thoroughly reviewed, debated, and amended as necessary to balance the interests of student-athletes, colleges, and professional sports stakeholders.“ (CoPilot)
Very little has changed in the bill since the last summary. Mostly questions and complaints have been answered or responded to. The challenge will then be to get the bill through the House before the end of the current session in enough time to get it on the President’s desk, who has already stated that he is ready to sign it. Members of the House have had reservations, and it will take both sides of the aisle to overcome any bulk objections.
The biggest win, here would be the carefully worded anti-trust exemption that the legislation would give to the NCAA to empower it to actually control its membership and the rules under which its member organizations participate in collegiate athletics.
Next Up for Me… News and Predictions.
It’s Game Week, and VMI is set to be reminded that we have a field piece, too. Courtesy of none other than Homer Hickam, himself.
