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The bill proposes the formation of the College Athletics Corporation (CAC), a central oversight entity that would set, administer, and enforce rules and standards to protect athletes who enter into endorsement contracts. The CAC would establish rules and investigatory processes to enforce this law. There would be a 15-member board of directors that oversees the CAC, and at least five board members must be current or former college athletes. The CAC would have its own constitution and bylaws. It would also have subpoena power and could use it to compel deposition testimony on behalf of the NCAA if it has “appropriate requests.”
The discussion draft includes, but is not limited to, the following:
Athletes would be allowed to have representatives, such as agents, and those representatives would need to be certified by the CAC. Schools would not be able to represent athletes in endorsement contract negotiations.
Schools would be prohibited from punishing athletes for receiving food, rent, medical expenses, insurance, tuition, fees, books and transportation from a third party. Schools would also be required to cover athletes’ aid until they graduate, even if they suffer a career-ending injury.
Athletes making more than $1,000 per year would need to disclose their endorsement contracts to a designated employee of their university, and recruits would need to provide copies of their current and expired name, image and likeness deals to that same person before signing a national letter of intent. These disclosures would not be made public and would not be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.
An athlete who no longer participates in their sport while operating under an NIL contract of more than a year can rescind it without being held liable for breach of contract.
Any athlete can declare for a draft and come back to school after going undrafted with notice within seven days of the draft taking place, as long as he or she does not accept compensation from a league, team or agent.
Athletes would be able to transfer one time and play right away at their second school, which is an NCAA rule but not law. Transfers would not be able to transfer during the season or in the 60 days leading up to the season.
A medical trust fund would be established that would cover the out-of-pocket expenses for injuries and other long-term conditions resulting from athletes’ participation in college sports.
State attorneys general could bring civil action if they believe a citizen has been harmed by a violation of the Act.
The law would pre-empt state NIL laws and prohibit them from establishing laws related to NIL rights and anything that would prohibit an athlete’s ability to transfer.
The bill establishes health and safety standards for conditions such as traumatic brain injuries and heat-related illnesses along with areas such as sexual assault and interpersonal violence. It would require that athletic trainers, physical therapists and physicians have autonomous authority to determine medical management and return-to-play decisions for athletes under their care. The CAC would be able to audit, visit and investigate schools — and it could issue a lifetime ban for anyone violating health and safety standards.
Schools would be required to report revenues and expenditures of each athletics program, the average number of hours college athletes spent on college athletic events and academic outcomes and majors for college athletes. Athletes would be required to take financial literacy and lifestyle development courses.
Background
Booker, Blumenthal and Moran have all been active in NIL legislation for years. Booker and Blumenthal had previously proposed (and amended) their College Athletes Bill of Rights, which would have given athletes the ability to unionize and share revenue with their leagues and schools, along with other healthcare-related protections. In 2021, Moran proposed a bill that addressed athletes’ NIL rights but also provided the NCAA the legal protection it seeks against antitrust lawsuits that challenge its athlete compensation rules. Moran’s bill also addressed transfer rules and the ability of athletes to return to college after going undrafted in a professional sports draft.
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