Some 12 hours before the Texas football team polished off its epic comeback over Ohio State, the moment outside Darrell K. Royal Stadium that sparked the most conversation online on Saturday was a TV interview with a United States Senator. Ted Cruz, the staunch conservative Republican from Texas, sat on the field next to Rece Davis, host of ESPN’s popular College Gameday show, and argued in favor of the Protect College Sports Act, which is moving closer to being voted on in the Senate.
Much of the online reaction to the interview centered on the profane chants that members of the Texas students section directed at Cruz. (College students cursing at a politician? Whoever heard of such a thing?) There were also the usual objections about the unholy mixing of politics and sports. That criticism missed the mark. Cruz was not there to discuss tariffs or the war in Iran. He was there to weigh in a topic that was very much germane to the setting and the audience.
Still, Cruz’s pitch fell flat, and it is emblematic of a larger problem this legislation is facing. If the NCAA and proponents of this bill are trying to sell it to the public, they are not doing a very good job.
ESPN’s one-sided presentation was only part of the problem. If a media outlet wanted to cover this issue properly, it would have invited an opponent of the PCSA like Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who claims it is unfair to student-athletes. A better spokesperson in favor would have been Maria Cantwell, the senator from Washington who is the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which Cruz chairs and which has jurisdiction over this bill. Republicans are traditionally anti-union and Democrats are traditionally pro-labor, so Cantwell is better positioned to make the case that this bill is good for student-athletes.
But if you really want to convince people that this bill is good for student-athletes, you might want to have that case made by … stay with me now … student-athletes. Some student-athletes have been included in discussions during various stages of this process, but their voices have been absent from the most publicly facing efforts. It’s all coaches, all the time, presenting a totally top-down argument to an increasingly skeptical public.
The arguments that Cruz and other are making in favor of the bill are also insufficient: We need guard rails. We need rules. We need an end to the chaos. Everyone can agree on those points. But where is the argument that these are the rules and guard rails we need?
“I Believe We’ll Get It Done”: Senator Ted Cruz Hopes His Bill Will Fix College Sports
Cruz joined The Hoops HQ Show to break down the Protect College Sports Act, a new bipartisan bill that addresses transferring, eligibility and more issues affecting college athletics
To be fair, it is not easy to engage the public on the nitty gritty of antitrust law and Congressional legislation. They just want to watch the games. That’s why the optics are so important.
The NCAA’s recent push for a federal law was based around a so-called “skinny” bill which would have given it some basic authority to codify the settlement in the House v. NCAA case, which is widely considered to be fair to players; re-install a transfer policy that requires players to sit out after the first move; and implement common-sense eligibility standards like the five-in-five rule that was passed in June, and which now has been upended by massive legal challenges.
Somehow, though, the legislation morphed into something big, unwieldy and not so clear-cut. Instead of bringing order to basic questions, the bill’s authors sought to impose economic and competitive balance throughout college sports. That effort may have been necessary to garner more Democratic support, but it has been dizzying to watch small-government conservatives like Cruz and Cody Campbell, the billionaire Texas Tech booster and self-apppointed “fixer” of college sports, advocate for this kind of federalized top-down approach. Socialism for me but not for thee?
Campbell has been especially clumsy in his efforts to sell this bill. He spent a lot of money producing television commercials that feature Nick Saban and Deion Sanders, but he did not think to include a single student-athlete. Saban and Sanders may be good football coaches, but why does that make them experts on Congressional legislation?
Even worse was Campbell’s juvenile tweet directed at Murphy last week which read, “would you like to step up and claim that you know more about college sports than Coach Prime?? He’s been a (legendary) athlete, Coach, and father of college athletes. You sure seem to think you do. Did some research: still trying to find evidence that you ever even earned a participation ribbon??” The tone made Campbell look infantile, and his argument teed up Murphy perfectly. The senator clapped back on Twitter by saying in part, “Ouch, Cody! That’s so mean! Yes, I’m sure Coach Sanders supports this bill. It’s a GREAT bill for coaches.”
The good news is we are finally going to start hearing more prominently from student-athletes this week, but the voices will include those who oppose the PCSA. This will come in the form of dueling press conferences on Monday, the first hosted by Sen. Murphy at noon, and the second by the Commerce Committee a few hours later. The Commerce Committee’s presentation will also include several prominent basketball coaches such as Rick Barnes, Mark Few, John Calipari and Craig Robinson, the executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. I doubt that this exchange will change anyone’s mind, but the fact that the Sen. Cruz and the NCAA waited to long to marshal arguments from student-athletes was a major turnover.
All of this will probably prove to be moot, because the chances of this bill ever becoming law are remote. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has secured a unanimous-consent agreement that the cloture vote will happen before Sept. 23. From there, it will still need to garner 60 votes, not a majority, for passage. Frankly, I never though the bill would get this far, so give Cruz and Cantwell credit, especially since it required getting the Big Ten and SEC on board following their initial objections.
But even if it gets across the finish line in the Senate this month, this bill needs to be passed by the House of Representatives, where resistance runs high, including amongst Republicans. Not to mention that the House is only going to be in session for about four days between now and the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Frankly, I’m not sure Campbell and the NCAA ever really needed to put in all this work to get the public on board. The real selling needs to be done inside the halls of Congress. If those efforts fall short of becoming law, then everyone can move into a post-Congress world, where conference governance is emerging as a potential path out of the wilderness.
But if proponents of this bill really want to get the public on board, they need to do a much better job of convincing folks that it’s the right thing to do. That means letting the public hear from more athletes and fewer coaches, and silencing boosters who think dunking on politicians on social media is smart. This is serious business, and it deserves serious dialogue and smart tactics. They better start using them fast, because time is running out.
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