Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Lawmakers Take the College Field to Rein In NIL Gone Wild

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Lawmakers Take the College Field to Rein In NIL Gone Wild · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: There aren't many issues in Washington these days that can
0:03
Speaker 1: bring Republicans and Democrats together, but one of them may
0:06
Speaker 1: be the future of saving college athletics, and frankly, it's
0:11
Speaker 1: about time. For years, we've watched the nil air spiral
0:15
Speaker 1: further and further out of control. And this is coming
0:18
Speaker 1: from a former college athlete. The transfer portal has become
0:23
Speaker 1: free agency. Coaches are struggling to build teams and other
0:26
Speaker 1: coaches can just bail for bigger paydays even when they're
0:30
Speaker 1: headed to the national championships. Rivalries are disappearing, Athletes are
0:35
Speaker 1: bouncing from school to school chasing the next big paycheck,
0:39
Speaker 1: and many athletic directors are warning that women's sports, Olympic sports,
0:43
Speaker 1: and smaller programs like tennis and golf, well they could
0:48
Speaker 1: be on the chopping block if something doesn't change fast. Now,
0:52
Speaker 1: for the first time, here's the good news. There actually
0:55
Speaker 1: appears to be a serious bipartisan effort to restore some
0:59
Speaker 1: or to protect college sports. Act that's been led by
1:04
Speaker 1: Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Maria Cantwell is now gaining
1:08
Speaker 1: momentum in Washington, and today it got a major boost
1:11
Speaker 1: from President Donald Trump himself. The legislation would create national
1:16
Speaker 1: nil standards, brings stability to transfers and eligibility rules, and yes,
1:22
Speaker 1: there's even the Lane Kiffen rule. After he screwed the
1:26
Speaker 1: University of Mississippi aka Mi alma Mater ole Miss as
1:30
Speaker 1: we headed to a national championship run. This is exactly
1:34
Speaker 1: why the bill is definitely needed. It gives college sports
1:38
Speaker 1: a much needed framework to prevent complete chaos and a
1:42
Speaker 1: total collapse of so many sports that aren't quote revenue making.
1:47
Speaker 1: President Trump made it clear that he believes Congress must
1:50
Speaker 1: act his endorsement of the legislation, he called it a
1:53
Speaker 1: strong foundation to not only save college sports, but he
1:57
Speaker 1: argued that executive action alone are not enough. He said
2:00
Speaker 1: that after meeting with university leaders, coaches, and athletic officials,
2:05
Speaker 1: it became clear that a legislative solution is needed to
2:08
Speaker 1: preserve the future of college athletics. And this isn't a
2:11
Speaker 1: new issue for President Trump either. Earlier this year, he
2:15
Speaker 1: warned that college sports could be lost forever without major
2:19
Speaker 1: reforms and described the current environment as an out of
2:22
Speaker 1: control financial arms race that threatened scholarships, competitive balance, and
2:27
Speaker 1: opportunities for so many future athletes. The reality is simple,
2:32
Speaker 1: Nil isn't going away. And by the way, as a
2:34
Speaker 1: former college athlete, I think college athletes should be able
2:37
Speaker 1: to make money. Athletes deserve the opportunity to profit from
2:41
Speaker 1: their name, their image, and their likeness.
2:44
Speaker 2: But what we've.
2:45
Speaker 1: Created is also well unsustainable. College football wasn't supposed to
2:50
Speaker 1: become the NFL free agency with dorm rooms, and coaches
2:54
Speaker 1: were supposed to actually coach their team to the end
2:56
Speaker 1: of the season, not leave them behind like Lane Kiffin did.
3:00
Speaker 1: This may be one of the rare moments where Republicans, Democrats, coaches,
3:04
Speaker 1: athletic directors, and even the White House all agree on something.
3:08
Speaker 1: If we don't fix college sports now, we may not
3:11
Speaker 1: recognize it in five years from today. Which brings me
3:15
Speaker 1: to the conversation that Senator Cruz and I were able
3:18
Speaker 1: to have about this legislation. It's an incredibly important bill,
3:22
Speaker 1: and I want you to hear the framework behind it
3:24
Speaker 1: and how it actually works. Take a listen to our
3:27
Speaker 1: conversation center. I gotta say I have never felt like
3:32
Speaker 1: you had my back more than watching you do sports
3:38
Speaker 1: talk radio s shows over the last twenty four hours,
3:42
Speaker 1: and you did something that desperately needed to be done.
3:45
Speaker 2: If you care about sports, if you love sports, and.
3:49
Speaker 1: You did something that dealt with Lane Kiffin in his name,
3:52
Speaker 1: the guy who used to be at my alma mater,
3:54
Speaker 1: Ole Miss and then screwed us and went down to LSU.
3:57
Speaker 1: I have lots of animasi there, but the Dame Kiffenrolle
4:01
Speaker 1: is now going to become an actual thing.
4:02
Speaker 2: Hopefully.
4:04
Speaker 1: Let's break down the nil, explain why this matters. And
4:08
Speaker 1: this is really I truly believe about saving college sports.
4:11
Speaker 1: I played in college. It was broken system for a
4:14
Speaker 1: long time. The pendulum swung a law far far the
4:17
Speaker 1: other way, and now we're trying to find a happy
4:20
Speaker 1: medium here.
4:22
Speaker 3: Well, listen, you're right. I spent much of this week
4:24
Speaker 3: doing sports radio, sports TV, doing interviews with Sports Illustrated
4:29
Speaker 3: ESPN stephen A. Smith and talking about college sports. And
4:33
Speaker 3: this week, I believe was a really consequential week for
4:37
Speaker 3: college sports. I introduced a major bipartisan bill that I
4:42
Speaker 3: rode alongside Maria Cantwell. Maria Cantwell is a Democrat from
4:46
Speaker 3: Washington State. I'm the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
4:49
Speaker 3: Maria is the ranking member, the senior Democrat on the
4:51
Speaker 3: Senate Commerce Committee. And this is a bill that I've
4:55
Speaker 3: spent three years working on and thousands of hours trying
4:59
Speaker 3: to bring Republicans and Democrats together, and we introduced it
5:03
Speaker 3: this week. I got to say, most observers thought there
5:05
Speaker 3: was no way Republicans and Democrats could find common ground
5:09
Speaker 3: on saving college sports. We managed to do it. And
5:13
Speaker 3: so I want to break it down, and on this pod,
5:15
Speaker 3: we're going to go into a little bit of depth
5:16
Speaker 3: because I think this topic really matters. But let's start
5:19
Speaker 3: with Look, sports is an amazing in College sports is
5:25
Speaker 3: an amazing institution in America. It's something that no other
5:28
Speaker 3: country has the equivalent of college sports in their nation.
5:33
Speaker 3: You know today that there are more than five hundred
5:36
Speaker 3: thousand college athletes right now competing, and you look at that,
5:42
Speaker 3: and college athletics and sports generally is something that brings
5:47
Speaker 3: us together. In an era where we're so divided, we're
5:50
Speaker 3: so angry, you can go and root for your team
5:53
Speaker 3: and we come together. It doesn't matter. You can be
5:55
Speaker 3: from different parties, you can be different races, you can
5:57
Speaker 3: be different religions, it doesn't matter. You are all cheering
6:00
Speaker 3: for the home team. That is an awesome thing. And
6:05
Speaker 3: over the years. College sports has been an avenue for
6:10
Speaker 3: millions of young men and women to get a college education,
6:14
Speaker 3: many of whom might never have had a chance to
6:15
Speaker 3: do that before. And right now, I believe college sports
6:20
Speaker 3: is an absolute crisis. Right now, we have chaos in
6:24
Speaker 3: college sports. So we've got the transfer portal. You've got
6:29
Speaker 3: athletes that are transferring two, three, four, five times, going
6:33
Speaker 3: every year to a different school. You've got at the
6:35
Speaker 3: end of the season, your school's team can be blown
6:39
Speaker 3: up as all the star players are recruited to other schools.
6:43
Speaker 3: The kids who are doing that end end up not
6:45
Speaker 3: getting a very good education. You've got kids challenging every
6:50
Speaker 3: eligibility rule. So you have players playing seven years, you
6:54
Speaker 3: have players playing college sports when they're twenty seven, twenty
6:57
Speaker 3: eight years old. You have pros going back to college sports.
7:01
Speaker 3: It is messed up and what is happening? Then every
7:05
Speaker 3: week a different college program across the country announces they're
7:11
Speaker 3: cutting a sport. They're cutting women's sports, they're cutting track
7:15
Speaker 3: and field, they're cutting Olympic sports that they're cutting tennis.
7:18
Speaker 1: They're cutting non money making sports, which, by the way,
7:21
Speaker 1: to be clear, is the overwhelming majority of college sports
7:25
Speaker 1: just so people understand that the economics of this.
7:29
Speaker 2: In most schools, they make money off football.
7:31
Speaker 1: If it's Division one, it's they make money off basketball.
7:35
Speaker 1: And then the scale is just nose diving after that,
7:38
Speaker 1: and there's so many sports that don't make money.
7:40
Speaker 2: And that's my Arkansas.
7:41
Speaker 1: This year they decided to get rid of the tennis
7:43
Speaker 1: team and then luckily somebody came in last moment said
7:45
Speaker 1: we'll fund it for you. But they had shut down
7:47
Speaker 1: men and women's tennis, and it was just like, sorry,
7:50
Speaker 1: it is what it is.
7:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was just a few weeks ago. Arkansas canceled
7:54
Speaker 3: both men's and women's tennis. I texted that to you,
7:56
Speaker 3: and as a former SEC VAR tennis player, you shed
8:01
Speaker 3: a tear. Thankfully, a booster came in and saved tennis
8:04
Speaker 3: for them. But it gives a sense of what's going on.
8:09
Speaker 3: And if anything, you understated where the revenue comes from.
8:13
Speaker 3: The overwhelming majority, the vast majority, is men's football, that
8:20
Speaker 3: that is the driver of revenue. Second place is basketball,
8:24
Speaker 3: but it is it is basketball makes a little bit
8:28
Speaker 3: of money. It is football that feeds the entire beast,
8:30
Speaker 3: and virtually no other sport is a money maker across
8:34
Speaker 3: college athletics. All of the other supports are sports are
8:38
Speaker 3: surviving on the revenue from football. And what is happening
8:43
Speaker 3: is we're in a NonStop spending war where the budgets
8:46
Speaker 3: are going up and up and up. And I believe
8:49
Speaker 3: if Congress doesn't act in three to five years, we
8:53
Speaker 3: will see thirty to fifty colleges across America that will
8:58
Speaker 3: still have football teams and it'll basically be a mini NFL.
9:02
Speaker 3: It will be a Pro Football league kind of the
9:05
Speaker 3: G League for the NFL and the rest of.
9:08
Speaker 1: The Many of the athletes make more money playing in
9:12
Speaker 1: college now than they do if they get drafted. If
9:15
Speaker 1: they're not a top draft pick, you actually can make
9:17
Speaker 1: more money. And that's part of what people understand is
9:20
Speaker 1: a lot of these athletes, they are staying around, as
9:22
Speaker 1: you mentioned it, like till they're twenty seven to twenty
9:23
Speaker 1: eight and playing five, six seven years in transfer all
9:25
Speaker 1: the time, they're making more money than going pro because
9:29
Speaker 1: the cash is so big to play in college now
9:32
Speaker 1: that they're like, why would I go to the pros
9:34
Speaker 1: unless I'm a top ten draft pick. After that, the
9:37
Speaker 1: economics of it say, stay in college longer.
9:40
Speaker 3: And listen I don't begrudge the athletes making money, and
9:43
Speaker 3: I think it's important. I think it's fair that they
9:45
Speaker 3: make money, that they be fairly compensated, and this bill
9:48
Speaker 3: that we drafted does that. But the system is broken.
9:52
Speaker 3: What is happening is there's a bidding war where the
9:55
Speaker 3: vast majority of schools right now are losing millions and
9:58
Speaker 3: in some cases tens of million, millions of dollars on sports,
10:01
Speaker 3: and it's why they're canceling all the other programs because
10:04
Speaker 3: they're just pouring money into football, trying to stay competitive.
10:07
Speaker 3: And you've got these schools that are very rich institutions
10:11
Speaker 3: that have big alumni donor bases that can fund that
10:15
Speaker 3: constant arms race, but everyone else is losing. So, for example,
10:19
Speaker 3: let's take here in my home state of Texas. If
10:22
Speaker 3: the system continues on the path it's on, there are
10:24
Speaker 3: only two schools that I am certain would survive, University
10:27
Speaker 3: of Texas and Texas A and M. They have a
10:29
Speaker 3: big enough donor base that no matter what happens, those
10:32
Speaker 3: two survive. But if we're sitting here three five years
10:35
Speaker 3: from now, in the other schools University of Houston, Baylor, TCU, SMU,
10:40
Speaker 3: Texas Tech Rice. If the other college programs in Texas
10:44
Speaker 3: go under, that's terrible for Texas. It's terrible for athletes,
10:48
Speaker 3: it's terrible for the sport. But let me be clear,
10:51
Speaker 3: this is not a done deal by any means. We
10:53
Speaker 3: still have a long road to go. We introduced the
10:56
Speaker 3: bill this week, which shocked people. They didn't think we
10:59
Speaker 3: could get a by part bill, and we introduced it
11:01
Speaker 3: with two Republican senators two Democrat senators. So Maria Cantwell
11:05
Speaker 3: and I introduced it. We were joined by Eric Schmidt,
11:07
Speaker 3: Republican from Missouri, and Chris Coon's Democrat from Delaware, so
11:11
Speaker 3: four of us introduced it. We're going to have next week.
11:14
Speaker 3: I'm going to share a hearing on the bill and
11:16
Speaker 3: we're going to hear from witnesses about what's happening in
11:18
Speaker 3: college sports. And then my intention is is very shortly
11:22
Speaker 3: thereafter that to mark up the bill, hopefully to vot
11:24
Speaker 3: it out of committee. But for this bill to pass,
11:27
Speaker 3: we've got to get at least seven Democrats. We got
11:29
Speaker 3: to get to sixty senators, and my goal is to
11:31
Speaker 3: get a lot more than sixty to have a big
11:34
Speaker 3: bipartisan vote. But we got to get it out of
11:36
Speaker 3: the Senate and then move it over to the House
11:38
Speaker 3: and have the House pass it. And so the bill
11:41
Speaker 3: is designed to number one, to find common ground and
11:46
Speaker 3: build a broad coalition. So what does it do. It
11:48
Speaker 3: starts out by protecting athletes and their right to be compensated.
11:52
Speaker 3: And listen, the old system that was around for a
11:54
Speaker 3: long long time, athletes could not get any compensation and
11:58
Speaker 3: it was really unfair. It didn't make sense. Lots of
12:00
Speaker 3: people were getting rich off college athletics, everyone except the athletes.
12:04
Speaker 3: And I think, as a conservative, I think you ought
12:07
Speaker 3: to have a right to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
12:09
Speaker 3: That if you work hard, you develop a skill, you
12:12
Speaker 3: ought to be able to benefit from it.
12:14
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Speaker 2: And I've said this on the show.
13:47
Speaker 1: Before student athletes were before we had in io, they
13:50
Speaker 1: were modern day slaves that you could be lied to
13:53
Speaker 1: by a coach. You signed with that university, they owned you,
13:56
Speaker 1: and if you wanted to transfer, and they didn't give
13:58
Speaker 1: you a release if they then made you sit out
14:01
Speaker 1: for a year, which made you completely irrelevant because a
14:04
Speaker 1: younger person would come along and they've been playing and
14:06
Speaker 1: they had stats and you were on the sidelines.
14:09
Speaker 2: You had to fix that.
14:10
Speaker 1: And that's what the NIL did is that it was like, Okay,
14:14
Speaker 1: we're gonna give some freedom. But then, as you mentioned,
14:16
Speaker 1: should you be able to as a student athlete transfer every
14:20
Speaker 1: single year you lose the team aspect of sports as well.
14:24
Speaker 3: Well. So what this bill does It protects number one,
14:27
Speaker 3: the right of every athlete to get compensated for real
14:31
Speaker 3: nil for name, image, and likeness. So if a quarterback
14:34
Speaker 3: is selling tennis shoes, and if that quarterback can sell
14:37
Speaker 3: millions of tennis shoes, that quarterback should be compensated millions
14:40
Speaker 3: of dollars. If you're producing that value, those contracts should
14:44
Speaker 3: be fully honored. This bill protects that. It also protects
14:47
Speaker 3: the rights of athletes to participate in revenue sharing. And
14:50
Speaker 3: there was a big litigation over college sports and a
14:53
Speaker 3: settlement that agreed to a revenue sharing agreement so that
14:57
Speaker 3: universities now can pass on significant portions of the revenue
15:01
Speaker 3: that is being earned to the athletes. And so that's protected.
15:05
Speaker 3: But what it doesn't allow is fake nil deals. What
15:09
Speaker 3: it doesn't allow is a booster handing a bag of
15:12
Speaker 3: cash to an athlete in a dark alley just to
15:15
Speaker 3: get that athlete to pay at their play at their school.
15:18
Speaker 3: And so it draws a line between real nil and
15:22
Speaker 3: just fake boosters trying to game the system. What else
15:25
Speaker 3: does it do? You you mentioned transfers.
15:28
Speaker 1: By the way, to be clear, what you just described,
15:29
Speaker 1: there's a lot of that happening. And yeah, that's that's
15:33
Speaker 1: the dark world of sports that I don't think people
15:36
Speaker 1: understand until they actually see it.
15:37
Speaker 2: I tell the story.
15:39
Speaker 1: I had a buddy of mine who played football and
15:43
Speaker 1: his mom traveled every game and his brothers came to
15:46
Speaker 1: every game, and I knew their financial situation. I just
15:48
Speaker 1: asked him, and we were friends, like how does it work?
15:50
Speaker 1: He was like, you want to see how it works? Like, yeah,
15:52
Speaker 1: he goes watch, he goes after the game Saturday, walk
15:56
Speaker 1: with me afterwards, meet me at the lockers, and I'll
15:58
Speaker 1: show you how it works. And I don't blame him.
16:02
Speaker 1: I want to be clear. This is how it worked
16:04
Speaker 1: at every se school in the country. You had a bag,
16:07
Speaker 1: he hit his bag and it was his locker room bag,
16:10
Speaker 1: and it was about you know this big and you
16:12
Speaker 1: throw your sneakers stuff in there. He would walk into
16:14
Speaker 1: a booster's tent, put that bag down the corner, we'd
16:17
Speaker 1: eat a little food, we'd leave. He'd picked the bag
16:20
Speaker 1: up and there was cash in the bag. He was
16:22
Speaker 1: then knew which booster to go to next. They were
16:24
Speaker 1: told the boosters to go to and they would go
16:27
Speaker 1: to the next booster. They'd put a little cash in
16:29
Speaker 1: that bag, same thing and work it. And then we
16:31
Speaker 1: went back to the dorm room and we're counting cash.
16:34
Speaker 1: He's like, Yeah, this is going to get my mom's
16:36
Speaker 1: plane ticket, my brother's playing ticket, my grandmother's playing ticket.
16:39
Speaker 1: Otherwise they'll never see me play a game. It covers
16:42
Speaker 1: their hotels and their meals, and that's how the system works.
16:44
Speaker 1: So like, cleaning that up is great, but it's still
16:48
Speaker 1: happening as you described it. There's still bags of money
16:50
Speaker 1: coming in dark alleys.
16:52
Speaker 3: And by the way, one of the things this bill
16:54
Speaker 3: protects explicitly is the ability of programs to cover travel
16:58
Speaker 3: expenses for the family of players. So that's something that
17:01
Speaker 3: is explicitly allowed under the bill and and carved out
17:04
Speaker 3: as legitimate. This bill also ratchets up health and safety
17:08
Speaker 3: standards for student athletes, and it puts in place rules
17:11
Speaker 3: that you can't you can't just ignore a concussion. You
17:13
Speaker 3: got to have health and safety standards. It requires far
17:17
Speaker 3: more extensive health insurance for student athletes than you have
17:20
Speaker 3: right now, including five years of health insurance after playing
17:24
Speaker 3: for injuries or disease from things that occurred while playing.
17:29
Speaker 3: And and so that is.
17:30
Speaker 1: Because the day you leave, I say this because I
17:33
Speaker 1: witnessed it. The day you leave, I blew out my shoulder.
17:36
Speaker 1: It would have been within the five years. It was
17:38
Speaker 1: clearly damaged, done during my time playing. All of that
17:42
Speaker 1: is on me, all the deductible, all the rehab. If
17:45
Speaker 1: you don't have great insurance, it's on you. My buddies
17:48
Speaker 1: that played that had herniated discs, they had back surgeries afterwards,
17:52
Speaker 1: they miss work, they I mean, and then you talk
17:55
Speaker 1: about that, the brain injuries of athletes and the concussion
17:58
Speaker 1: that they knew. And then there was a clear decision
18:01
Speaker 1: made in COWED sports that we can use up your body,
18:05
Speaker 1: conduct tape it to success. And as soon as you
18:08
Speaker 1: either graduated or were off scholarship or walked out of
18:12
Speaker 1: that locker room. For the last time we had zero liability.
18:15
Speaker 1: So I mean this when I say it, thank you,
18:17
Speaker 1: because that may be the most important thing you guys
18:19
Speaker 1: put in there. Five years is adequate because I know
18:22
Speaker 1: my shoulder surgery, the rehab and everything else out of
18:25
Speaker 1: my own pocket. That was on me, and there's a
18:27
Speaker 1: lot of players that have to deal with that.
18:28
Speaker 2: It's unfair.
18:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, and look something like your shoulder injury. This mandates
18:33
Speaker 3: zero out of pocket expense for the athlete for those
18:35
Speaker 3: five years that it has to be covered by the
18:37
Speaker 3: insurance with no out of pocket expense. It also creates
18:41
Speaker 3: a sixty million dollar medical trust fund so that institutions
18:44
Speaker 3: that don't have the resources to provide that that that
18:48
Speaker 3: insurance institutions like historically black colleges and universities. That trust
18:53
Speaker 3: fund is there paid for by the giant schools that
18:55
Speaker 3: are generating a lot of money, and so it improves
18:58
Speaker 3: the standards and and it also has protections for scholarships,
19:02
Speaker 3: academic protection, so a coach can't say to a player,
19:05
Speaker 3: you can't take that course. A coach can't make a
19:08
Speaker 3: player not be able to go to class. There are
19:11
Speaker 3: lots of protections that are written in for the athletes.
19:14
Speaker 3: But then the system you mentioned, the transfer portal. What
19:17
Speaker 3: the bill provides is that every athlete is entitled to
19:20
Speaker 3: one free transfer, so you can transfer any time, no
19:22
Speaker 3: questions asked for a second transfer. It lays out specific reasons.
19:27
Speaker 3: So number one, off your coach quits. If your coach quits,
19:29
Speaker 3: you can transfer somewhere else. Number two if your program
19:33
Speaker 3: is canceled. Well, if your program's canceled, you can transfer
19:35
Speaker 3: somewhere else if you want to play at another school.
19:37
Speaker 3: Or number three, if you're a victim of a sexual
19:40
Speaker 3: assault or sexual harassment. Those exceptions are carved out, you
19:43
Speaker 3: can have a second transfer. But other than those exception,
19:47
Speaker 3: if you transfer a second time, you're required a red
19:50
Speaker 3: shirt for a year. You're required to sit out for
19:52
Speaker 3: a year. Because look, my approach focusing on this bill
19:57
Speaker 3: is I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about
19:59
Speaker 3: the souper for stars. I didn't spend a lot of
20:01
Speaker 3: time worrying about the Michael Jordan's or or very few
20:04
Speaker 3: of them that the arch mannings. You know, they're people
20:07
Speaker 3: who are gonna make millions in the NBA of the NFL,
20:09
Speaker 3: and they're gonna be fine, But ninety nine percent of
20:12
Speaker 3: college athletes are like you Ben that they're folks who
20:16
Speaker 3: played in college but never played in the NFL, the NBA.
20:19
Speaker 3: Ninety nine percent of the athletes in college are never
20:21
Speaker 3: going to play pro ball of any kind. And my
20:23
Speaker 3: focus was on those guys that I want them to
20:26
Speaker 3: be able to get an opportunity to get an education.
20:30
Speaker 3: And for millions of low income kids, many African American
20:34
Speaker 3: or Hispanic, without athletics, they would not have the chance,
20:37
Speaker 3: they wouldn't be able to afford college and to get
20:40
Speaker 3: an education, to get a degree, but also to learn
20:44
Speaker 3: everything you get from sports, hard work, discipline, teamwork, sportsmanship,
20:48
Speaker 3: all of that can can help set them up for
20:51
Speaker 3: success in life, even if they don't earn a paycheck
20:55
Speaker 3: as a professional athlete. And so look for an athlete.
20:58
Speaker 3: If you end up going to four or five schools
21:01
Speaker 3: and in four or five years, you're not getting a
21:04
Speaker 3: good education, You're just going from one school to the
21:06
Speaker 3: other and playing and playing and playing. At the end
21:08
Speaker 3: of your time, you're done stop anymore.
21:11
Speaker 1: You're an athright yourent's getting traded from one team to another.
21:15
Speaker 3: So the transfer portal reform is really important. And eligibility.
21:19
Speaker 3: We put in clear rules that every athlete's entitled to
21:22
Speaker 3: five years of eligibility and a hard cap of age
21:25
Speaker 3: twenty four as the oldest you can be.
21:27
Speaker 2: And so we love that rule.
21:29
Speaker 3: You know, we're not gonna have eight year old matter.
21:32
Speaker 3: It's it's not fair for a twenty eight year old
21:34
Speaker 3: guy to play against an eighteen year old guy. There's
21:37
Speaker 3: just differences that make it not fair.
21:39
Speaker 1: I want you to pause what you're doing for just
21:42
Speaker 1: one minute, and I want you to hear about Alejandra.
21:45
Speaker 1: She lives in a remote community with very few resources
21:49
Speaker 1: and little to no healthcare. So when Alejandra gets sick,
21:53
Speaker 1: her parents have no real options, no doctors in their community,
21:58
Speaker 1: and no money for real medical care. By the third day,
22:02
Speaker 1: her body was shutting down. She woke up and just
22:05
Speaker 1: long enough to tell her mom, I can't take the
22:09
Speaker 1: pain anymore. I can't keep going. Her parents drove hours
22:14
Speaker 1: to find a doctor who tried everything, but she needed
22:17
Speaker 1: a private hospital and that was impossible for her family
22:21
Speaker 1: to afford. And that is when Compassion International stepped in.
22:26
Speaker 1: Now through Compassion, Alejandra was treated and against all odds,
22:30
Speaker 1: she survived. She lived because someone just like you took
22:35
Speaker 1: action right now. Unfortunately, there are children just like Alejandra
22:40
Speaker 1: who won't survive unless someone like you steps in. Compassion
22:44
Speaker 1: International partners with local churches, providing children with the support
22:49
Speaker 1: that they need, critical medical care, plus food, education and
22:54
Speaker 1: the hope of the gospel, all in Jesus's name. So
22:59
Speaker 1: help a child wild just like Alejandra. Today you can
23:03
Speaker 1: visit Compassion dot com. That's Compassion dot com. My sports
23:08
Speaker 1: brain's going insane right now. I have a question, what
23:11
Speaker 1: if you serve in the military.
23:13
Speaker 3: Is there are a yes, there is that there is
23:16
Speaker 3: an exception for the military explicitly.
23:18
Speaker 1: Okay, so if you're over twenty four, you go serve,
23:20
Speaker 1: you come back, you can play again, all right?
23:22
Speaker 2: I have another question, you said, and.
23:23
Speaker 3: It also specifies pros can't go go in and play
23:28
Speaker 3: college sports. I gotta admit I was joking with with
23:31
Speaker 3: Charlie Baker, who's the head of the NC double A.
23:33
Speaker 3: I said, I said, Charlie, I for one am really
23:37
Speaker 3: looking forward to seeing Lebron James's college career because right now,
23:41
Speaker 3: in the current college he never played in college. He
23:43
Speaker 3: could go back. Could you imagine being a seventeen year
23:46
Speaker 3: old can of freshman in college and discover that you're
23:49
Speaker 3: you're guarding Lebron James, Senator.
23:52
Speaker 1: I want to get back into this. You mentioned something
23:53
Speaker 1: I want to I want to clarify. You said that
23:55
Speaker 1: you get two transfers. It's the first time in my
23:57
Speaker 1: life I've ever wanted to be a witness in anything
23:59
Speaker 1: in government, in the Senate of the House. As a witness,
24:03
Speaker 1: I would ask this question to the body. So I'll
24:05
Speaker 1: ask it to you. If I go to a school
24:08
Speaker 1: freshman year, and the coach recruits me, he quits, disappears,
24:12
Speaker 1: leaves whatever.
24:13
Speaker 2: I get to transfer.
24:14
Speaker 1: What if I go to another school and then that
24:16
Speaker 1: coach takes another job, do I get another transfer? Yes?
24:19
Speaker 3: Okay, anytime your coach quits, it's not fair to you
24:22
Speaker 3: to punish you if you were recruited.
24:23
Speaker 2: For the coach just a minimum of one.
24:25
Speaker 3: It's unlimited there right right in that exception, because that's
24:28
Speaker 3: a legitimate reason to leave, and that's not going to
24:31
Speaker 3: happen as a widespread matter. That's not going to lead
24:33
Speaker 3: to you know, you know, every starting basketball player being
24:37
Speaker 3: recruited away at the end of every season from a team,
24:39
Speaker 3: which is what we're seeing sometimes now.
24:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh no, I mean I laugh. There's football teams
24:44
Speaker 1: now where there was like zero members from the prayer
24:46
Speaker 1: year on the football team, and that's a football team,
24:49
Speaker 1: which is huge. So who is against this legislation and
24:53
Speaker 1: where's the pushback coming from?
24:55
Speaker 3: Well, I have to say so. We introduced it this
24:57
Speaker 3: week and there's been surprisingly little push It has been
25:01
Speaker 3: very well received. As I said, people were astonished that
25:04
Speaker 3: we could get their things are so broken down and
25:06
Speaker 3: partisan that they just believed there was no way Democrats
25:08
Speaker 3: and Republicans could come together. And I got to say,
25:12
Speaker 3: you're a.
25:12
Speaker 1: Pretty liberal guy like you and him, don't y'all are
25:14
Speaker 1: not usually one in one like this.
25:16
Speaker 3: Well, actually, Chris and I work on a number of
25:18
Speaker 3: things together. Maria Cantwell is my lead partner on this.
25:21
Speaker 3: She's the ranking member on Commerce, and we literally have
25:24
Speaker 3: been negotiating for the last month. We've been spending six
25:27
Speaker 3: to eight hours a day in a room negotiating directly
25:31
Speaker 3: provision by provision. It has been painstaking and we had
25:34
Speaker 3: to reach middle grounds where there are provisions in there
25:38
Speaker 3: that don't go as far as I would like, but
25:39
Speaker 3: don't go as far as she would like, and that's
25:41
Speaker 3: how you have to get there. But our opposition is
25:44
Speaker 3: coming from two places. Number one, the extreme far left,
25:48
Speaker 3: and number two, big money. And let me break that
25:51
Speaker 3: down the extreme far left. To date, only one senator
25:54
Speaker 3: out of one hundred has publicly criticized that. That's Chris Murphy,
25:58
Speaker 3: the very liberal senator from Cannet Kid who's blasted this, says,
26:01
Speaker 3: this doesn't do enough for athletes and it just helps millionaires.
26:05
Speaker 3: And it's look, the far left is listening to union
26:12
Speaker 3: bosses and trial lawyers that want a system where number one,
26:16
Speaker 3: their constant lawsuits. Every university is being sued NonStop, Every
26:20
Speaker 3: conference being sued NonStop, every league is being sued NonStop.
26:23
Speaker 3: And number two, every student athlete is an employee. They're unionized,
26:29
Speaker 3: their union members, they're paying union dues. Those union dues
26:31
Speaker 3: are going to fund Democrat candidates. Both of those are
26:35
Speaker 3: terrible outcomes for college sports and a whole lot of
26:39
Speaker 3: the programs the historically black colleges and universities who said
26:42
Speaker 3: if that happens, they'll shut down their entire athletic department.
26:45
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the consequence that would end up taking
26:48
Speaker 3: away athletic opportunity for over time, millions of kids. So
26:53
Speaker 3: that's a terrible outcome. But that's one area of pushback
26:56
Speaker 3: is the very far left. The other area of pushback
26:59
Speaker 3: is is big money. And you know I mentioned that
27:02
Speaker 3: we're on a path to consolidation in thirty to fifty schools.
27:06
Speaker 3: In college football, there are two conferences that account for
27:09
Speaker 3: more than two thirds of the revenue, and that is
27:11
Speaker 3: the SEC and the Big Ten. That's where the eyeballs are.
27:15
Speaker 3: They generate massive revenue because look, that's where most of
27:18
Speaker 3: the best football in America is being played. Is the
27:20
Speaker 3: SEC in Big Ten, not exclusively, but very heavily those
27:24
Speaker 3: two conferences. There has been a lot of talk in
27:27
Speaker 3: those two conferences about merging and forming a super league.
27:32
Speaker 3: Now I think that would be a terrible outcome. You'd
27:34
Speaker 3: end up with the rich getting richer, but all of
27:37
Speaker 3: the rest of college sports would be left behind. It
27:39
Speaker 3: would basically transform the other schools into Vision.
27:44
Speaker 2: Hirid Describer's Division two.
27:46
Speaker 1: You wouldn't be able to compete at the same level,
27:48
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have the same quality players. Anybody that cared
27:51
Speaker 1: about football and wanted to play at the highest level
27:53
Speaker 1: and play for national championship would go to the Super Conference,
27:55
Speaker 1: right like, right now, you want to go to the SEC,
27:57
Speaker 1: and if you're from the North Northeast you may want
27:59
Speaker 1: to go in and other schools, but in general, that's
28:01
Speaker 1: the holy grail. You do what you just describe and
28:04
Speaker 1: have them two come together. Every other school in America
28:06
Speaker 1: is a loser now.
28:07
Speaker 3: And by the way, it's even worse than that because
28:10
Speaker 3: they lose essentially all of their TV revenue, which funds
28:13
Speaker 3: the rest of their athletic department. So the other schools
28:15
Speaker 3: cancel all the non revenue starts, they slash athletics all together,
28:19
Speaker 3: they eliminate scholarships, so you end up with millions of
28:22
Speaker 3: kids over time not being able to go to school
28:25
Speaker 3: to play sports. And it's not just those kids, because
28:30
Speaker 3: an awful lot of eyeballs people learn about a school
28:33
Speaker 3: by watching March Madness, by watching sports, and they end
28:36
Speaker 3: up applying to the school and you know, a Gonzaga,
28:40
Speaker 3: you know I mean, and they end up It drives.
28:44
Speaker 3: When your school does well in athletics, your applications sow,
28:47
Speaker 3: your your donations from alumni sore, and so you end
28:50
Speaker 3: up badly damaging a bunch of schools, not just in sports,
28:53
Speaker 3: but all together and hurting universities. So what does this
28:57
Speaker 3: bill do? Number one, it explicitly prohibits a super league.
29:01
Speaker 3: It prohibits the Big Ten and the SEC from combining.
29:03
Speaker 3: It just says, no, that's bad for sports, it's bad
29:06
Speaker 3: for athletes, it's bad for football. That is prohibited. Now,
29:10
Speaker 3: you know what, the leadership of the SEC in particular
29:13
Speaker 3: is not happy about prohibiting a super league. But secondly,
29:17
Speaker 3: so the way I looked at this problem, there are
29:19
Speaker 3: two elements. There's a cost element and a revenue element.
29:22
Speaker 3: On the cost side, you want to slow down the
29:25
Speaker 3: out of control spiraling that is bankrupting most of the
29:27
Speaker 3: programs so that the programs can stay vibrant and kids
29:31
Speaker 3: can keep having these opportunities. But on the revenue side,
29:34
Speaker 3: we looked hard for how do we grow the revenue
29:37
Speaker 3: that is available to fund college sports. And what we
29:39
Speaker 3: do is we allow colleges to join together and negotiate
29:43
Speaker 3: for media rights jointly. That I believe will significantly increase
29:49
Speaker 3: the revenue. So, for example, the number one source of
29:52
Speaker 3: eyeballs and revenue in TV is the NFL.
29:55
Speaker 2: It's massive.
29:56
Speaker 3: The number two is college football. And yet amazingly, even
29:59
Speaker 3: though a lot, a lot more people watch college football
30:02
Speaker 3: than the NBA. The NBA makes billions more in its
30:05
Speaker 3: media contracts, and there's a reason the NBA negotiates as
30:09
Speaker 3: one unit. You don't have the Houston Rockets negotiating against
30:12
Speaker 3: the Knicks and fighting each other, and yet in college
30:15
Speaker 3: conferences that's what you have. So this allows conferences to
30:19
Speaker 3: come together. It's voluntary, so no one's forced to come together. Yeah,
30:23
Speaker 3: but it lets them come together and negotiate jointly for
30:27
Speaker 3: media rights. I believe that would expand by billions of
30:30
Speaker 3: dollars the money coming in, which means that there's more
30:33
Speaker 3: money for the other sports. And we write in that
30:36
Speaker 3: if you do this, if you get joint media rights,
30:39
Speaker 3: you must maintain every single roster spot and every single
30:42
Speaker 3: scholarship spot for women's and men's sports, for Olympic sports,
30:47
Speaker 3: for track and field, for tennis, for all the non
30:49
Speaker 3: revenue sports. You got to maintain them if you're getting
30:52
Speaker 3: a lot more money through football. And so it's designed
30:54
Speaker 3: to be a win win for everyone. But look, the
30:58
Speaker 3: leadership of the SEC has said that they're not interested.
31:02
Speaker 3: And I'm look Greg Sank, I know, well, Tony Petiti,
31:04
Speaker 3: who leads the Big Ten. I know him well. I've
31:07
Speaker 3: talked to both of them and I've said, listen, this
31:09
Speaker 3: is voluntary. It only works if you guys choose to participate.
31:13
Speaker 3: That means the other schools have to offer you a
31:15
Speaker 3: good enough deal that y'all are making a lot more
31:18
Speaker 3: money and so are they. That is a win win
31:20
Speaker 3: for everyone. That's the outcome I hope we see because
31:23
Speaker 3: I want to see college sports continue to be an
31:27
Speaker 3: amazing thing for athletes, for students to continue to be
31:30
Speaker 3: an amazing thing for universities, and a great thing for fans. Look,
31:34
Speaker 3: it is an awesome thing to cheer on your school.
31:36
Speaker 3: And you asked about the Lane Kiffin rule. It provides
31:39
Speaker 3: that coaches cannot be hired away during the season or
31:43
Speaker 3: during the playoffs. We adopt the same rule as the NFL,
31:46
Speaker 3: which is you got to wait till the off season,
31:48
Speaker 3: because it's not fair to do what happened to the
31:50
Speaker 3: fans of Ole Miss to take their coach right going
31:53
Speaker 3: into the playoffs. That's just wrong.
31:55
Speaker 2: Well, keep following this story.
31:56
Speaker 1: I can promise you that we've got a lot more
31:59
Speaker 1: that's going to happen in the days ahead. So make
32:01
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32:04
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