Senators hopeful of passing broad college sports legislation addressing NCAA issues this year

WASHINGTON — In recent years, much of the focus on the prospect of federal legislation related to college sports has been centered on the Senate. On Thursday, though, a Republican-controlled House committee made the first substantial move, approving a single-purpose bill that would prevent college athletes from being employees of schools, conferences or a national governing association.

However, with Democrats controlling the Senate, and Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) having engaged in months of negotiations with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) over more comprehensive legislation addressing issues in college athletics, there is no question that they will remain pivotal figures in whether a bill actually gets through Congress this year.

In separate interviews with USA TODAY Sports before Thursday’s House committee markup and vote, Booker and Blumenthal – who have teamed with Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) on a discussion draft of a bill – talked about their continuing interest in getting a bill passed this year.

“Our goal is to do it as quickly as possible,” Blumenthal said, “and we're in very active talks with” Cruz.

Booker said this still could be accomplished, even amid impending the elections.

“We're getting closer and closer to silly season with the elections coming up,” Booker said, “but I'm hoping actually there are some windows either right before the election -- or especially afterwards -- where we can get something done.”

Blumenthal said that the NCAA’s and the current Power Five conferences’ recent approval of a proposed settlement of three athlete-compensation antitrust lawsuits only sharpens the need for action.

The settlement would include $2.8 billion in damages and billions more in future revenue-sharing payments to athletes, including shares of money from sponsorship revenue. But the proposed settlement does not address a variety of issues. Among them are athletes’ employment status -- which also is the subject of a federal court case and two National Labor Relations Board cases -- and it would not fully cover the NCAA’s ongoing legal exposure.

"The settlement makes legislation all the more urgent,” Blumenthal said, “so it's a real priority. We need to provide more fairness through (athletes’ activities to make money from their name, image and likeness) and other means. And Senator Booker and I have proposed essentially an athlete bill of rights that provides all the guarantees that employment status would do without the necessity of making athletes employees.”

In the immediate aftermath of the proposed settlement deal, Cruz issued a statement in which he said it “presents a significant change for a college athletics system still facing tremendous legal uncertainty absent Congressional action. … Overall, I believe this agreement demonstrates the urgent need for Congress to act and give the more than half a million student-athletes across the country a path to continue using athletics to get an education and develop life skills for their future.”

Booker and Blumenthal on Thursday also continued to advocate for a bill that addresses more than one issue.

Said Booker: “What I think we really need to be doing in Congress, reflective of the bipartisan bill we have on this side, is looking at college sports holistically and doing everything we can to bring, you know, sort of justice and rationality to a sport that right now is in a bit of crisis because so many different issues are popping up.

“As a former college athlete, I'm still concerned about health and safety issues and still concerned about people being able to get their degrees and still concerned about men and women -- years after their sport, having made millions of dollars for the school -- are still having to go in their pocket for their own health and safety. So, to not deal with those issues that are still plaguing college athletes is unacceptable to me.”