Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Saving College Sports—Landmark New Legislation that’s a Massive Win for Athletes, Colleges & Fans

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Saving College Sports—Landmark New Legislation that’s a Massive Win for Athletes, Colleges & Fans · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome. It is Verdic with center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson
0:04
Speaker 1: with you as well, and it's so nice to have
0:06
Speaker 1: some of you listening on the radio around the country.
0:08
Speaker 1: We've got a lot that we're going to be talking about.
0:10
Speaker 1: But before we even get to the topics, I gotta say, Senator,
0:14
Speaker 1: I know you. I feel like I know you well.
0:16
Speaker 1: I feel like you're one of my best friends. The
0:19
Speaker 1: idea that for twenty five years, there is one woman
0:24
Speaker 1: who has put up with you for twenty five years
0:28
Speaker 1: is truly incredible. I don't know if this is a
0:31
Speaker 1: rapture alert. I don't know if you've gotten really good
0:33
Speaker 1: at gift giving, but congratulations, twenty five years you have
0:38
Speaker 1: been married. That is incredible, well done.
0:41
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. We celebrated our twenty fifth anniversary on
0:44
Speaker 2: Wednesday this week, and you know it's Heidi sis twenty
0:48
Speaker 2: five years of marriage. It's been twenty one of the
0:50
Speaker 2: happiest years of her life. So I'll take I'll take
0:53
Speaker 2: that ratio. That's not bad. I'm exceded asking for which
0:58
Speaker 2: four years she's describing as the other and she didn't
1:01
Speaker 2: say they were contiguous. It's just, you know, it's I'm
1:04
Speaker 2: batting well over five hundred. I'm happy with that. We
1:08
Speaker 2: had actually a fabulous anniversary. We started the day we
1:12
Speaker 2: went and had brunched together. We spent the day just
1:15
Speaker 2: kind of we looked through our wedding albums. It's unbelievable
1:19
Speaker 2: twenty five years ago, May twenty seventh, two thousand and one,
1:22
Speaker 2: and my god, we were kids like it really.
1:25
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you're still young in the Senate,
1:28
Speaker 1: but you're not young anymore when you look at your
1:30
Speaker 1: wedding pictures. That's the best way you can describe it.
1:32
Speaker 2: Right, So I'll tell you the weird thing Ben is
1:35
Speaker 2: is Heidi's parents were my age when we got married,
1:39
Speaker 2: and we thought of them as like unbelievably old. Oh
1:43
Speaker 2: and you know, twenty five years is a long time,
1:45
Speaker 2: but it was. You know, our nephews and nieces were
1:50
Speaker 2: two and four and they were like the flower girl
1:53
Speaker 2: and the little ring bearers and they were so cute.
1:57
Speaker 2: And all four of them now are grown and marror.
2:00
Speaker 2: They're great kids. But uh, you know, twenty five years
2:03
Speaker 2: added to two and four gets you old enough to
2:05
Speaker 2: be grown and married and and and and a full
2:07
Speaker 2: on adult. So we spent the whole day together, just
2:10
Speaker 2: reflecting on kind of what the last twenty five years were,
2:14
Speaker 2: what surprised us on the good side, what surprised us
2:16
Speaker 2: on the bad side. And then uh, Wednesday night we
2:20
Speaker 2: went out and had a nice rhumatic dinner together. It
2:24
Speaker 2: was funny. We each got cards and we both wrote
2:29
Speaker 2: the same thing in the card to each other. We
2:31
Speaker 2: both wrote, I can't wait for the next fifty years together.
2:35
Speaker 1: And there you go.
2:36
Speaker 2: And when I read Heidi's note, that's how she closed it.
2:39
Speaker 2: I just started laughing because she hadn't read my card yet,
2:41
Speaker 2: And that's how I closed by, not that.
2:43
Speaker 1: I was gonna say it with somebody cheating to someone
2:45
Speaker 1: their card. The other person saw the cards. That was
2:47
Speaker 1: it and authentic. It wasn't okay, no cheating involved there.
2:50
Speaker 1: I loved that.
2:51
Speaker 2: It turns out twenty five years you kind of know
2:53
Speaker 2: how each other thinks. And uh, okay, I'm gonna tell
2:55
Speaker 2: you a quick funny story. Then we're gonna get to substance.
2:58
Speaker 2: But but I you know, I went to get at her.
3:00
Speaker 2: I got her two dozen roses for twenty fifth anniversary,
3:02
Speaker 2: and so I met at Whole Foods right down the
3:04
Speaker 2: street from us bought the roses. I wanted to get
3:07
Speaker 2: twenty five, but they only had them in twelve bundles
3:11
Speaker 2: and they didn't have any loose roses and there was
3:13
Speaker 2: nobody working the during counter, so I got it. I
3:15
Speaker 2: got her twenty four. I gave her the twenty four,
3:18
Speaker 2: which she said that. She said, did you get twenty five?
3:21
Speaker 2: And I said, I said, sweetheart, you're the twenty fifth rose.
3:25
Speaker 1: Ah, look at you.
3:27
Speaker 2: And it was a bomb. But look look I'm usually
3:30
Speaker 2: not very slick, but it was a bob. But she
3:32
Speaker 2: just cracked up laughing and it was like, all right,
3:33
Speaker 2: that wasn't bad. Like I turned to our girls, I'm like, hey,
3:36
Speaker 2: dad's got a little game here that worked. But I
3:42
Speaker 2: got her a card and it was a card that
3:44
Speaker 2: was in the tray on the little carousel that said blank.
3:47
Speaker 2: And it had a really pretty, almost like silk drawing
3:52
Speaker 2: of a flower that was just really pretty. It was blank,
3:54
Speaker 2: and I figured I'd write her a nice note in it. Yeah,
3:57
Speaker 2: And I'm at the checkout counter as I I'm paying
4:00
Speaker 2: for it, it flashes up on the screen and suddenly
4:02
Speaker 2: it says sympathy card, and I stop. I'm like, wait
4:08
Speaker 2: a second, I go look at the thinking. Even though
4:10
Speaker 2: it was in the blank shelf, it said in it,
4:13
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry for your loss and I'm hurting with
4:16
Speaker 2: you for all your suffering, and I cracked. I didn't
4:20
Speaker 2: actually end up giving it to Heidi because she's pretty literal,
4:24
Speaker 2: and I don't know that she would have thought it
4:26
Speaker 2: was very funny. But Caroline, our eldest daughter. I told
4:29
Speaker 2: her that tonight. She cracked up. Caroline thought it was funny.
4:32
Speaker 2: I would I would give Caroline a sympathy card, but
4:36
Speaker 2: Heidi would would find it less amusing, and so instead
4:39
Speaker 2: I pretty good. I went and got an actual blank
4:40
Speaker 2: card and real.
4:41
Speaker 1: It so many times I hate cheesy cards Valentine's Day,
4:44
Speaker 1: I will actually get two cards. I'll get the cheesy
4:47
Speaker 1: one and then I'll get the humorous, fun one that's like,
4:49
Speaker 1: you know, a cartoon or something, and I'm like, this
4:51
Speaker 1: is the one I really wanted to get you. Here's
4:53
Speaker 1: the one I know you really want, and so we
4:55
Speaker 1: it's now become a thing we give too. So twenty
4:57
Speaker 1: five years, I got to ask you one last question.
4:59
Speaker 1: I'm assuming a twenty five year gift is like, you
5:03
Speaker 1: know me, my love language is gifts I'm a jewelry
5:07
Speaker 1: person and the benefits from that. What did you get
5:11
Speaker 1: for the twenty five year anniversary? And I hope it
5:13
Speaker 1: was good because everyone's judging you otherwise right now.
5:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I got Heidi some earrings. We actually went
5:18
Speaker 2: to the jewelry store together and got the earrings. And
5:20
Speaker 2: she really likes the earrings. They're they're nice earrings and
5:24
Speaker 2: and she really likes them. And I for a lot
5:28
Speaker 2: of vacations, jewelryes is sort of my like, like for
5:32
Speaker 2: birthdays and Christmas, you know, i'd get bracelet or jewelry
5:35
Speaker 2: or something, and so it I think she picked out
5:38
Speaker 2: the earrings and she really liked them. There you go.
5:40
Speaker 1: See, you know you didn't go wrong. If she picked
5:42
Speaker 1: it out, it's on her at that point.
5:44
Speaker 2: Heidi has strong opinions, and it is dangerous. I would say, fully,
5:50
Speaker 2: half of the gifts I've gotten her that she didn't
5:52
Speaker 2: see she returns, and the first I don't know, five
5:57
Speaker 2: ten years of marriage. I'd get kind of hurt. My
5:59
Speaker 2: feelings would be hurt. And then I'm just like, look,
6:01
Speaker 2: this is an opinionated lady. She knows what she thinks.
6:05
Speaker 2: I take a shot sometimes and if I get something
6:08
Speaker 2: that I think is really nice and she's like, no, thanks,
6:10
Speaker 2: I just here's the gift for seat. Go take it
6:12
Speaker 2: back at something you want.
6:13
Speaker 1: And fine, and you got it. Final question, let's see
6:20
Speaker 1: sixteen years in so I'm behind you, clearly, I don't think, yeah,
6:24
Speaker 1: I'm behind you here, what is your one piece of
6:27
Speaker 1: advice for.
6:27
Speaker 2: By the way, how are you right now?
6:29
Speaker 1: Ben forty four?
6:31
Speaker 2: Forty four, So nine years from now you'll be fifty three,
6:34
Speaker 2: so just two years behind me when you hit your
6:35
Speaker 2: twenty fifth.
6:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I have my twenty fit exactly, So what
6:39
Speaker 1: is your one piece of advice? Like, what is the
6:41
Speaker 1: advice you have well the whole day of the ups
6:44
Speaker 1: and downs? What's the one thing you would give for
6:46
Speaker 1: people on how to make it to twenty five years
6:48
Speaker 1: besides the fact that you need to almost always be
6:50
Speaker 1: wrong all the time.
6:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, there are lots of things that are trite.
6:55
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, marriage is work. It's it's hard work,
6:57
Speaker 2: it's a decision we're going to go through. So that
7:00
Speaker 2: there are times I will say, this is something I
7:02
Speaker 2: wrote in my card. There are times when the highs
7:06
Speaker 2: exceeded anything we could imagine, And there have been times
7:09
Speaker 2: when the low's exceeded anything we can imagine, and it's
7:12
Speaker 2: you know, I remember as a kid, I used to
7:14
Speaker 2: watch soap operas and think soap operas were overstated. And
7:17
Speaker 2: the longer I live, the more I realized man is
7:19
Speaker 2: a fallen creature. And this journey there are times when
7:22
Speaker 2: you're grieving. There are times when you're weeping. There are
7:25
Speaker 2: times when you're celebrating. And look, part of going the
7:28
Speaker 2: distance is don't get too excited at the highs, don't
7:30
Speaker 2: get too sad at the lows. You know, this is
7:33
Speaker 2: a marathon, not a sprint. But I remember also when
7:36
Speaker 2: we got married, the pastor who married us, we got
7:39
Speaker 2: married in California, Santa Barbara, California, at the Museum of
7:43
Speaker 2: Natural History, because Heidi's a native California. She grew up
7:45
Speaker 2: in San Luis Obispo, just north of there, and we
7:48
Speaker 2: got it was an outdoor wedding, but Heidie's theme was
7:52
Speaker 2: Midsummer night's evening. It was a beautiful wedding. I had
7:56
Speaker 2: nothing to do with designing it. She designed everything. But
7:58
Speaker 2: the pastor who married he sat up there. He said, look,
8:01
Speaker 2: there are gonna be times when you have fights and
8:03
Speaker 2: sometimes knock down, drag out fights. And he said, if
8:06
Speaker 2: you're thinking maybe I'm the one who should apologize, you're right,
8:13
Speaker 2: you should. And he said that to me, and he
8:15
Speaker 2: said that to her. He said, it doesn't matter who's
8:17
Speaker 2: right or wrong. It's up to you, the husband. It's
8:20
Speaker 2: up to you, the wife. Even if you're totally in
8:23
Speaker 2: the right and she's totally in the wrong, go and
8:25
Speaker 2: say I'm sorry and make the peace. Now, we don't
8:27
Speaker 2: always do that, but I remember his words, and that's
8:30
Speaker 2: really good counsel for a long and hopefully another fifty
8:33
Speaker 2: years of marriage.
8:34
Speaker 1: All right, Senator, Before we get into this legislation, I
8:37
Speaker 1: do want to take a moment and just talk about
8:39
Speaker 1: something that's really important and some of you listening, I
8:42
Speaker 1: think are going to want to know about, and that
8:44
Speaker 1: is Americans United for Life. For over the past fifty years,
8:49
Speaker 1: AUL has filed more than two hundred legal briefs and
8:54
Speaker 1: help create at least four hundred pro life bills in
8:58
Speaker 1: over fifty states. They're writing model legislation and consulting with
9:04
Speaker 1: the state legislators and defending their own laws and other
9:08
Speaker 1: pro life statues in court. Now, Americans United for Life
9:12
Speaker 1: has a dual front approach of not only writing but
9:15
Speaker 1: then defending legislation, and it's proved an effective one that
9:19
Speaker 1: could become even more impactful as pro life state legislatures
9:24
Speaker 1: are moving to enact protections for preborn babies after the
9:29
Speaker 1: downfall of Roe v. Wade, they're also protecting the mothers.
9:33
Speaker 1: And now they are also doing everything they can to
9:36
Speaker 1: fight on the legality of abortion that is returned to
9:40
Speaker 1: the states, and that's where you come in. You now
9:43
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to overturn pro abortion laws and advance
9:47
Speaker 1: pro life legislation that attacks the most vulnerable in our society,
9:52
Speaker 1: from the womb to the tomb. Together, we can shape
9:55
Speaker 1: the future of our nation through life affirming legislation in
10:00
Speaker 1: every state. A gift of just twenty five dollars helps
10:04
Speaker 1: hold abortion providers accountable and helps protect women and unborn
10:09
Speaker 1: children across the country. And now through a match, your
10:13
Speaker 1: gift is doubled. You can donate securely at aul dot
10:19
Speaker 1: org slash verdict. That's a UL dot org slash verdict
10:25
Speaker 1: sponsored by Americans United for Life Center. I gotta say
10:29
Speaker 1: I have never felt like you had my back more
10:33
Speaker 1: than watching you do sports talk radio s shows over
10:39
Speaker 1: the last twenty four hours, and you did something that
10:43
Speaker 1: desperately needed to be done if you care about sports,
10:45
Speaker 1: if you love sports, and you did something that dealt
10:49
Speaker 1: with Lane Kiffin in his name, the guy who used
10:51
Speaker 1: to be at my alma mater, Ole Miss and then
10:54
Speaker 1: screwedis and went down to LSU. I have lots of
10:57
Speaker 1: animasy there, but the Lane kiffen roll is now going
11:00
Speaker 1: to become an actual thing. Hopefully. Let's break down the nil,
11:05
Speaker 1: explain why this matters. And this is really I truly
11:08
Speaker 1: believe about saving college sports. I played in college. It
11:11
Speaker 1: was broken system for a long time. The penulum swung
11:15
Speaker 1: a law far far the other way, and now we're
11:18
Speaker 1: trying to find a happy medium here.
11:21
Speaker 2: Well, listen, you're right. I spent much of this week
11:23
Speaker 2: doing sports radio, sports TV, doing interviews with Sports Illustrated
11:28
Speaker 2: ESPN Stephen A. Smith and talking about college sports. And
11:32
Speaker 2: this week, I believe was a really consequential week for
11:36
Speaker 2: college sports. I introduced a major bipartisan bill that I
11:41
Speaker 2: rode alongside Maria Cantwell. Maria Cantwell is a Democrat from
11:45
Speaker 2: Washington State. I'm the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
11:48
Speaker 2: Maria is the ranking member, the senior Democrat on the
11:50
Speaker 2: Senate Commerce Committee. And this is a bill that I've
11:54
Speaker 2: spent three years working on and thousands of hours trying
11:58
Speaker 2: to bring Republicans and Democrats together, and we introduced it
12:02
Speaker 2: this week. I got to say, most observers thought there
12:04
Speaker 2: was no way Republicans and Democrats could find common ground
12:08
Speaker 2: on saving college sports. We managed to do it. And
12:12
Speaker 2: so I want to break it down. And on this pod,
12:14
Speaker 2: we're going to go into a little bit of depth
12:15
Speaker 2: because I think this topic really matters. But let's start
12:18
Speaker 2: with Look, sports is an amazing in College sports is
12:24
Speaker 2: an amazing institution in America. It's something that no other
12:27
Speaker 2: country has the equivalent of college sports in their nation.
12:32
Speaker 2: You know today that there are more than five hundred
12:35
Speaker 2: thousand college athletes right now competing, and you look at that,
12:41
Speaker 2: and college athletics and sports generally is something that brings
12:46
Speaker 2: us together. In an era where we're so divided, we're
12:49
Speaker 2: so angry, you can go and root for your team
12:52
Speaker 2: and we come together. It doesn't matter. You can be
12:54
Speaker 2: from different parties, you can be different races, you can
12:56
Speaker 2: be different religions. It doesn't matter. You're all cheering for
12:59
Speaker 2: the home team. That is an awesome thing. And over
13:04
Speaker 2: the years, college sports has been an avenue for millions
13:10
Speaker 2: of young men and women to get a college education,
13:13
Speaker 2: many of whom might never have had a chance to
13:14
Speaker 2: do that before. And right now, I believe college sports
13:19
Speaker 2: is an absolute crisis. Right now, we have chaos in
13:23
Speaker 2: college sports. So we've got the transfer portal. You've got
13:28
Speaker 2: athletes that are transferring two, three, four, five times, going
13:32
Speaker 2: every year to a different school. You've got at the
13:34
Speaker 2: end of the season, your school's team can be blown
13:38
Speaker 2: up as all the star players are recruited to other schools.
13:42
Speaker 2: The kids who are doing that end end up not
13:44
Speaker 2: getting a very good education. You've got kids challenging every
13:49
Speaker 2: eligibility rule. So you have players playing seven years, you
13:53
Speaker 2: have players playing college sports when they're twenty seven, twenty
13:56
Speaker 2: eight years old. You have pros coming back to college sports.
14:00
Speaker 2: It is messed up and what is happening? Then every
14:04
Speaker 2: week a different college program across the country announces they're
14:10
Speaker 2: cutting a sport. They're cutting women's sports, they're cutting track
14:14
Speaker 2: and field, they're cutting Olympic sports that they're cutting tennis.
14:17
Speaker 1: They're cutting non money making sports. Which, by the way,
14:20
Speaker 1: to be clear, is the overwhelming majority of college sports.
14:24
Speaker 1: Just so people understand that the economics of this. In
14:28
Speaker 1: most schools, they make money off football. If it's Division one,
14:31
Speaker 1: it's they make money off basketball, and then the scale
14:35
Speaker 1: is just nose diving after that, and there's so many
14:38
Speaker 1: sports that don't make money. And that's why Arkansas this
14:40
Speaker 1: year they decided to get rid of the tennis team
14:42
Speaker 1: and then luckily somebody came in last moment said we'll
14:44
Speaker 1: fund it for you, but they had shut down men
14:46
Speaker 1: and women's tennis, and it was just like, sorry, it
14:49
Speaker 1: is what it is.
14:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was just a few weeks ago. Arkansas canceled
14:53
Speaker 2: both men's and women's tennis. I texted that to you,
14:55
Speaker 2: and as a former SEC varsity tennis player, you shed
15:00
Speaker 2: a tear. Thankfully, a booster came in and saved tennis
15:03
Speaker 2: for them. But it gives a sense of what's going on.
15:08
Speaker 2: And if anything, you understated where the revenue comes from.
15:12
Speaker 2: The overwhelming majority, The vast majority is men's football. That
15:19
Speaker 2: that is the driver of revenue. Second place is basketball,
15:23
Speaker 2: but it is it is basketball makes a little bit
15:27
Speaker 2: of money. It is football that feeds the entire beast
15:29
Speaker 2: and virtually no other sport is a money maker across
15:33
Speaker 2: college athletics. All of the other supports are sports are
15:37
Speaker 2: surviving on the revenue from football. And what is happening
15:42
Speaker 2: is we're in a NonStop spending war where the budgets
15:45
Speaker 2: are going up and up and up. And I believe
15:48
Speaker 2: if Congress doesn't act in three to five years, we
15:52
Speaker 2: will see thirty to fifty colleges across America that will
15:57
Speaker 2: still have football teams and it'll basically a mini NFL.
16:01
Speaker 2: It will be a Pro Football league kind of the
16:04
Speaker 2: G League for the NFL. Yeah, and the rest.
16:07
Speaker 1: Of the way. Many of the athletes make more money
16:10
Speaker 1: playing in college now than they do if they get drafted. Yeah,
16:14
Speaker 1: if they're not a top draft pick, you actually can
16:16
Speaker 1: make more money. And that's part of what people understand
16:19
Speaker 1: is a lot of these athletes are staying around, as
16:21
Speaker 1: you mentioned it, like till they're twenty seven to twenty
16:22
Speaker 1: eight and playing five, six, seven years in transfer all
16:24
Speaker 1: the time, they're making more money than going pro because
16:28
Speaker 1: the cash is so big to play in college now
16:31
Speaker 1: that they're like, why would I go to the pros
16:33
Speaker 1: unless I'm a top ten draft pick. After that, the
16:36
Speaker 1: economics of it say, stay in college longer and listen.
16:40
Speaker 2: I don't begrudge the athletes making money, and I think
16:43
Speaker 2: it's important. I think it's fair that they make money,
16:45
Speaker 2: that they be fairly compensated, and this bill that we
16:47
Speaker 2: drafted does that. But the system is broken. What is
16:51
Speaker 2: happening is there's a bidding war where the vast majority
16:54
Speaker 2: of schools right now are losing millions and in some
16:57
Speaker 2: cases tens of millions of dollars on and it's why
17:01
Speaker 2: they're canceling all the other programs because they're just pouring
17:04
Speaker 2: money into football, trying to stay competitive. And you've got
17:07
Speaker 2: these schools that are very rich institutions that have big
17:11
Speaker 2: alumni donor bases that can fund that constant arms race,
17:15
Speaker 2: but everyone else is losing. So, for example, let's take
17:19
Speaker 2: your in my home state of Texas. If the system
17:22
Speaker 2: continues on the path it's on, there are only two
17:24
Speaker 2: schools that I am certain would survive, University of Texas
17:27
Speaker 2: and Texas A and M. They have a big enough
17:29
Speaker 2: donor base that no matter what happens, those two survive.
17:32
Speaker 2: But if we're sitting here three five years from now,
17:35
Speaker 2: in the other schools University of Houston, Baylor, TCU, SMU,
17:39
Speaker 2: Texas Tech, Rice. If the other college programs in Texas
17:43
Speaker 2: go under, that's terrible for Texas. It's terrible for athletes,
17:47
Speaker 2: it's terrible for the sport. But let me be clear,
17:50
Speaker 2: this is not a done deal by any means. We
17:52
Speaker 2: still have a long road to go. We introduced the
17:55
Speaker 2: bill this week, which shocked people. They didn't think we
17:58
Speaker 2: could get a bipartisan bill, and we entered it with
18:01
Speaker 2: two Republican senators, two Democrat senators. So Maria Cantwell and
18:04
Speaker 2: I introduced it. We were joined by Eric Schmidt, Republican
18:07
Speaker 2: from Missouri, and Chris Coon's Democrat from Delaware, so four
18:10
Speaker 2: of us introduced it. We're going to have next week.
18:13
Speaker 2: I'm going to share a hearing on the bill, and
18:15
Speaker 2: we're going to hear from witnesses about what's happening in
18:17
Speaker 2: college sports. And then my intention is is very shortly
18:21
Speaker 2: thereafter that to mark up the bill, hopefully to vot
18:23
Speaker 2: it out of committee. But for this bill to pass,
18:26
Speaker 2: we've got to get at least seven Democrats. We've got
18:28
Speaker 2: to get to sixty senators, and my goal is to
18:30
Speaker 2: get a lot more than sixty to have a big
18:33
Speaker 2: bipartisan vote. But we got to get it out of
18:35
Speaker 2: the Senate and then then move it over to the
18:37
Speaker 2: House and have the House pass it. And so the
18:39
Speaker 2: bill is designed to number one, to find common ground
18:45
Speaker 2: and build a broad coalition. So what does it do.
18:47
Speaker 2: It starts out by protecting athletes and their right to
18:50
Speaker 2: be compensated. And listen, the old system that was around
18:53
Speaker 2: for a long long time, athletes could not get any
18:55
Speaker 2: compensation and it was really unfair. It didn't make sense.
18:59
Speaker 2: Lots of people were getting and rich off college athletics,
19:01
Speaker 2: everyone except the athletes. And I think, as a conservative,
19:06
Speaker 2: I think you ought to have a right to enjoy
19:07
Speaker 2: the fruits of your labor. That if you work hard,
19:09
Speaker 2: you develop a skill, you ought to be able to
19:12
Speaker 2: benefit from it.
19:13
Speaker 1: And I've said this on this show. Before student athletes
19:15
Speaker 1: were before we had nil they were modern day slaves
19:19
Speaker 1: that you could be lied to by a coach. You
19:21
Speaker 1: signed with that university, they owned you, and if you
19:24
Speaker 1: wanted to transfer and they didn't give you a release,
19:27
Speaker 1: they then made you sit out for a year, which
19:29
Speaker 1: made you completely irrelevant because a younger person would come
19:32
Speaker 1: along and they've been playing and they had stats and
19:34
Speaker 1: you were on the sidelines. You had to fix that.
19:37
Speaker 1: And that's what the NIL did is that it was like, Okay,
19:41
Speaker 1: we're gonna give some freedom. But then, as you mentioned,
19:43
Speaker 1: should you be able as a student athlete transfer every
19:47
Speaker 1: single year you lose the team aspect of sports as well.
19:51
Speaker 2: Well. So what this bill does it protects number one,
19:54
Speaker 2: the right of every athlete to get compensated for real
19:58
Speaker 2: nil for name, image, and life. So if a quarterback
20:01
Speaker 2: is selling tennis shoes, and if that quarterback can sell
20:04
Speaker 2: millions of tennis shoes, that quarterback should be compensated millions
20:07
Speaker 2: of dollars. If you're producing that value, those contracts should
20:11
Speaker 2: be fully honored. This bill protects that. It also protects
20:14
Speaker 2: the rights of athletes to participate in revenue sharing. And
20:17
Speaker 2: there was a big litigation over college sports and a
20:20
Speaker 2: settlement that agreed to a revenue sharing agreement so that
20:24
Speaker 2: universities now can pass on significant portions of the revenue
20:29
Speaker 2: that is being earned to the athletes, and so that's protected.
20:32
Speaker 2: But what it doesn't allow is fake NIL deals. What
20:36
Speaker 2: it doesn't allow is a booster handing a bag of
20:39
Speaker 2: cash to an athlete and in a dark alley just
20:42
Speaker 2: to get that athlete to pay at their play at
20:44
Speaker 2: their school. And so it draws a line between real
20:47
Speaker 2: nil and and just fake boosters trying to game the system.
20:51
Speaker 2: What else does it do? You You mentioned transfers.
20:55
Speaker 1: By the way, to be clear what you just described,
20:56
Speaker 1: there's a lot of that happening. And yeah, that's yes,
20:59
Speaker 1: that's the that's the dark world of sports that I
21:02
Speaker 1: don't think people understand until they actually see it. I
21:05
Speaker 1: tell the story. I had a buddy of mine who
21:08
Speaker 1: played football and his mom traveled every game and his
21:12
Speaker 1: brothers came to every game, and I knew their financial situation.
21:15
Speaker 1: I just asked him, and we were friends, like how
21:16
Speaker 1: does it work? He was like, you want to see
21:18
Speaker 1: how it works? Like, yeah, he goes watch, he goes
21:20
Speaker 1: after the game Saturday, walk with me afterwards, meet me
21:24
Speaker 1: at the lockers, and I'll show you how it works.
21:27
Speaker 1: And I don't blame him. I want to be clear.
21:30
Speaker 1: This is how it worked at every se school in
21:32
Speaker 1: the country. You had a bag. He had his bag
21:35
Speaker 1: and it was his locker room bag, and it was
21:37
Speaker 1: about you know this big and you throw your sneakers
21:39
Speaker 1: stuff in there, he would walk into a booster's tent,
21:42
Speaker 1: put that bag down the corner, we'd eat a little food,
21:45
Speaker 1: we'd leave. He'd picked the bag up and there was
21:47
Speaker 1: cash in the bag. He was then knew which booster
21:50
Speaker 1: to go to next. They were told the boosters to
21:52
Speaker 1: go to and they would go to the next booster.
21:55
Speaker 1: They put a little cash in that bag, same thing
21:57
Speaker 1: and work it, and then we went back to the
21:59
Speaker 1: dorm room counting cash. He's like, Yeah, this is gonna
22:02
Speaker 1: get my mom's plane ticket, my brother's plane ticket, my
22:05
Speaker 1: grandmother's playing ticket. Otherwise I'll never see me play a game.
22:08
Speaker 1: It covers their hotels and their meals, and that's how
22:10
Speaker 1: the system works. So like, cleaning that up is great,
22:14
Speaker 1: but it's still happening as you described it. There's still
22:16
Speaker 1: bags of money coming in dark alleys.
22:19
Speaker 2: And by the way, one of the things this bill
22:21
Speaker 2: protects explicitly is the ability of programs to cover travel
22:25
Speaker 2: expenses for the family of players. So that's something that
22:28
Speaker 2: is explicitly allowed under the bill and carved out as legitimate.
22:32
Speaker 2: This bill also ratchets up health and safety standards for
22:36
Speaker 2: student athletes, and it puts in place rules that you can't.
22:39
Speaker 2: You can't just ignore a concussion. You got to have
22:41
Speaker 2: health and safety standards. It requires far more extensive health
22:45
Speaker 2: insurance for student athletes than you have right now, including
22:49
Speaker 2: five years of health insurance after playing for injuries or
22:52
Speaker 2: disease from things that occurred while playing.
22:56
Speaker 1: And and so that is because the day you leave.
22:58
Speaker 1: I say this because I witnessed it. The day you leave,
23:01
Speaker 1: I blew up my shoulder. It would have been within
23:04
Speaker 1: the five years. It was clearly damaged, done during my
23:07
Speaker 1: time playing. All of that is on me, all the deductible,
23:11
Speaker 1: all the rehab. If you don't have great insurance, it's
23:14
Speaker 1: on you. My buddies that played that had herniated discs,
23:17
Speaker 1: they had back surgeries afterwards, they missed work. They I mean,
23:21
Speaker 1: and then you talk about the brain injuries of athletes
23:24
Speaker 1: and the concussion that they knew. And there was a
23:27
Speaker 1: clear decision made in college sports that we can use
23:31
Speaker 1: up your body and duct tape it to success. And
23:34
Speaker 1: as soon as you either graduated or were off scholarship
23:38
Speaker 1: or walked out of that locker room for the last time,
23:40
Speaker 1: we had zero liability. So I mean this when I
23:43
Speaker 1: say it, thank you, because that may be the most
23:45
Speaker 1: important thing you guys put in there five years is
23:48
Speaker 1: adequate because I know my shoulder surgery, the rehab and
23:50
Speaker 1: everything else out of my own pocket. That was on me,
23:54
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of players that have to deal
23:55
Speaker 1: with that. It's unfair.
23:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look something like your shoulder injury. This mandate
24:00
Speaker 2: zero out of pocket expense for the athlete for those
24:02
Speaker 2: five years that it has to be covered by the
24:04
Speaker 2: insurance with no out of pocket expense. It also creates
24:08
Speaker 2: a sixty million dollar medical trust fund so that institutions
24:11
Speaker 2: that don't have the resources to provide that that insurance
24:16
Speaker 2: institutions like historically black colleges and universities, that trust fund
24:20
Speaker 2: is there paid for by the giant schools that are
24:22
Speaker 2: generating a lot of money, and so it improves the standards.
24:26
Speaker 2: And it also has protections for scholarships, academic protection, so
24:31
Speaker 2: a coach can't say to a player, you can't take
24:33
Speaker 2: that course. A coach can't make a player not be
24:36
Speaker 2: able to go to class. There are lots of protections
24:39
Speaker 2: that are written in for the athletes. But then the
24:41
Speaker 2: system you mentioned, the transfer portal. What the bill provides
24:45
Speaker 2: is that every athlete is entitled to one free transfer,
24:48
Speaker 2: so you can transfer any time, no questions asked. For
24:51
Speaker 2: a second transfer. It lays out specific reasons. So number one,
24:54
Speaker 2: off your coach quits. If your coach quits, you can
24:57
Speaker 2: transfer somewhere else. Number two if your programmed is canceled. Well,
25:00
Speaker 2: if your program's canceled, you can transfer somewhere else if
25:03
Speaker 2: you want to play at another school. Or number three
25:05
Speaker 2: if you're a victim of sexual assault or sexual harassment.
25:09
Speaker 2: Those exceptions are carved out, you can have a second transfer.
25:13
Speaker 2: But other than those exception, if you transfer a second time,
25:16
Speaker 2: you're required a red shirt for a year. You're required
25:18
Speaker 2: to sit out for a year. Because look, my approach
25:22
Speaker 2: focusing on this bill is I didn't spend a lot
25:25
Speaker 2: of time worrying about the superstars. I didn't spend a
25:28
Speaker 2: lot of time worrying about the Michael Jordan's or or
25:31
Speaker 2: very few of them that the arch mannings. You know,
25:34
Speaker 2: there are people who are going to make millions in
25:35
Speaker 2: the NBA of the NFL, and they're going to be fine.
25:38
Speaker 2: But ninety nine percent of college athletes are like you
25:41
Speaker 2: Ben that they're folks who played in college but but
25:44
Speaker 2: never played in the NFL. The NBA, ninety nine percent
25:47
Speaker 2: of the athletes in college are never going to play
25:49
Speaker 2: pro ball of any kind. And my focus was on
25:51
Speaker 2: those guys that I want them to be able to
25:55
Speaker 2: get an opportunity to get an education. And for millions
25:59
Speaker 2: of low income kids, many African American or Hispanic, without athletics,
26:03
Speaker 2: they would not have the chance. They wouldn't be able
26:05
Speaker 2: to afford college and to get an education, to get
26:08
Speaker 2: a degree, but also to learn everything you get from sports,
26:12
Speaker 2: hard work, discipline, teamwork, sportsmanship, all of that can can
26:17
Speaker 2: help set them up for success in life, even if
26:20
Speaker 2: they don't earn a paycheck as a professional athlete. And
26:23
Speaker 2: so look for an athlete. If you end up going
26:27
Speaker 2: to four or five schools in four or five years,
26:30
Speaker 2: you're not getting a good education. You're just going from
26:32
Speaker 2: one school to the other and playing and playing and playing.
26:34
Speaker 2: At the end of your time, you're done.
26:37
Speaker 1: Play sports athlete anymore. You're an athlete's getting traded from
26:40
Speaker 1: one team to another.
26:42
Speaker 2: So the transfer portal reform is really important. On eligibility,
26:46
Speaker 2: we put in clear rules that every athlete's entitled to
26:49
Speaker 2: five years of eligibility and a hard cap of age
26:52
Speaker 2: twenty four. As the oldest you can be, and so
26:55
Speaker 2: we love that rule. You know, we're not gonna have
26:58
Speaker 2: eight year old better. It's not it's not fair for
27:00
Speaker 2: a twenty eight year old guy to play against an
27:02
Speaker 2: eighteen year old guy. There's just differences that make it
27:06
Speaker 2: not fair.
27:06
Speaker 1: My sports brain's going insane right now. I have a question,
27:10
Speaker 1: what if you serve in the military. Is there a a.
27:14
Speaker 2: Yes, there is that there is an exception for the
27:16
Speaker 2: military explicitly.
27:17
Speaker 1: Okay, so if you're over twenty four, you go serve,
27:19
Speaker 1: you come back, you can play again, all right. I
27:21
Speaker 1: have another question.
27:22
Speaker 2: You said it also specifies pros can't go go in
27:26
Speaker 2: and play college sports. I gotta admit I was joking
27:29
Speaker 2: with Charlie Baker, who's the head of the n double A.
27:32
Speaker 2: I said. I said, Charlie, I for one am really
27:36
Speaker 2: looking forward to seeing Lebron James's college career because right now,
27:40
Speaker 2: in the current SYS college he never played in college.
27:42
Speaker 2: He could go back. Could you imagine being a seventeen
27:44
Speaker 2: year old kid, a freshman in college and discover that
27:47
Speaker 2: you're you're guarding Lebron James.
27:50
Speaker 1: Senator, I want to get back into this. You mentioned
27:52
Speaker 1: something I want to I want to clarify you said
27:54
Speaker 1: that you get two transfers. It's this first time in
27:56
Speaker 1: my life I've ever wanted to be a witness in
27:58
Speaker 1: anything in government, in the Senate of the House. As
28:01
Speaker 1: a witness, I would ask this question to the body.
28:04
Speaker 1: So I'll ask it to you. If I go to
28:07
Speaker 1: a school freshman year and the coach that recruits me,
28:09
Speaker 1: he quits, disappears, leaves, whatever, I get to transfer. What
28:13
Speaker 1: if I go to another school and then that coach
28:16
Speaker 1: takes another job, do I get another transfer?
28:18
Speaker 2: Yes? Okay, anytime your coach quits, it's not fair to
28:21
Speaker 2: you to punish you if you were recruited for.
28:22
Speaker 1: The coach just a minimum of one.
28:24
Speaker 2: It's unlimited there right right in that exception, because that's
28:27
Speaker 2: a legitimate reason to leave, and that's not going to
28:30
Speaker 2: happen as a widespread matter. That's not going to lead
28:32
Speaker 2: to know, you know, every starting basketball player being recruited
28:36
Speaker 2: away at the end of every season from a team,
28:38
Speaker 2: which is what we're seeing sometimes now.
28:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh no, I mean I laugh. There's football teams
28:43
Speaker 1: now where there was like zero members from the prayer
28:45
Speaker 1: year on the football team. And that's a football team,
28:48
Speaker 1: which is huge. So who is against this legislation and
28:52
Speaker 1: where's the pushback coming from?
28:54
Speaker 2: Well, I have to say so we introduced it this
28:56
Speaker 2: week and there's been surprisingly little pushback. It has been
29:00
Speaker 2: very well received. As I said, people were astonished that
29:03
Speaker 2: we could get their things are so broken down and
29:05
Speaker 2: partisan that they just believed there was no way Democrats
29:07
Speaker 2: and Republicans could come together. And I got to say, you're.
29:11
Speaker 1: A pretty liberal guy like you and him, don't y'all
29:13
Speaker 1: are not usually one in one like this.
29:15
Speaker 2: Well, actually, Chris and I work on a number of
29:17
Speaker 2: things together. Maria Cantwell is my lead partner on this.
29:20
Speaker 2: She's the ranking member on Commerce, and we literally have
29:23
Speaker 2: been negotiating for the last month. We've been spending six
29:26
Speaker 2: to eight hours a day in a room negotiating directly
29:29
Speaker 2: provision by provision. It has been painstaking, and we had
29:33
Speaker 2: to reach middle grounds where there are provisions in there
29:37
Speaker 2: that don't go as far as I would like, but
29:38
Speaker 2: don't go as far as she would like. And that's
29:40
Speaker 2: how you have to get there. But our opposition is
29:43
Speaker 2: coming from two places. Number one, the extreme far left,
29:47
Speaker 2: and number two big money. And let me break that down.
29:50
Speaker 2: The extreme far left. To date, only one senator out
29:53
Speaker 2: of one hundred has publicly criticized that. That's Chris Murphy,
29:57
Speaker 2: the very liberal senator from Connecticut who's blasted this, says,
30:00
Speaker 2: this doesn't do enough for athletes and it just helps millionaires.
30:04
Speaker 2: And it's look, the far left is listening to union
30:11
Speaker 2: bosses and trial lawyers that want a system where number one,
30:15
Speaker 2: their constant lawsuits. Every university is being sued NonStop, every
30:19
Speaker 2: conference being sued NonStop, every league is being sued NonStop.
30:22
Speaker 2: And number two, every student athlete is an employee. They're unionized,
30:28
Speaker 2: their union members, they're paying union dues. Those union dues
30:30
Speaker 2: are going to fund Democrat candidates. Both of those are
30:34
Speaker 2: terrible outcomes for college sports and a whole lot of
30:38
Speaker 2: the programs the historically black colleges and universities who said
30:41
Speaker 2: if that happens, they'll shut down their entire athletic department.
30:44
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the consequence that would end up taking
30:47
Speaker 2: away athletic opportunity for over time, millions of kids. So
30:52
Speaker 2: that's a terrible outcome. But that's one area of pushback
30:55
Speaker 2: is the very far left. The other area of pushback
30:58
Speaker 2: is is big money and you know, I mentioned that
31:01
Speaker 2: we're on a path to consolidation in thirty to fifty schools.
31:05
Speaker 2: In college football, there are two conferences that account for
31:08
Speaker 2: more than two thirds of the revenue, and that is
31:10
Speaker 2: the SEC and the Big Ten. That's where the eyeballs are.
31:14
Speaker 2: They generate massive revenue because look, that's where most of
31:17
Speaker 2: the best football in America is being played. Is the
31:19
Speaker 2: SEC in Big Ten, not exclusively, but very heavily those
31:23
Speaker 2: two conferences. There has been a lot of talk in
31:26
Speaker 2: those two conferences about merging and forming a super league. Now,
31:31
Speaker 2: I think that would be a terrible outcome. You'd end
31:34
Speaker 2: up with the rich getting richer, but all of the
31:36
Speaker 2: rest of college sports would be left behind. It would
31:39
Speaker 2: basically transform the other schools into Vision.
31:43
Speaker 1: Hirid Describer's Division two. You wouldn't be able to compete
31:46
Speaker 1: at the same level. You wouldn't have the same quality players.
31:49
Speaker 1: Anybody that cared about football and wanted to play at
31:51
Speaker 1: the highest level and play for national championship would go
31:53
Speaker 1: to the Super Conference. Right like, right now, you want
31:55
Speaker 1: to go to the SEC, and if you're from the
31:57
Speaker 1: North Northeast, you may want to go in other schools.
31:59
Speaker 1: But Funeral that's the holy grail. You do what you
32:02
Speaker 1: just describe and have them two come together. Every other
32:05
Speaker 1: school in America is a loser now.
32:06
Speaker 2: And by the way, it's even worse than that because
32:09
Speaker 2: they lose essentially all of their TV revenue, which funds
32:12
Speaker 2: the rest of their athletic department. So the other schools
32:14
Speaker 2: cancel all the non revenue towarts, they slash athletics all together,
32:18
Speaker 2: they eliminate scholarships. So you end up with millions of
32:21
Speaker 2: kids over time not being able to go to school
32:24
Speaker 2: to play sports. And it's not just those kids, because
32:29
Speaker 2: an awful lot of eyeballs people learn about a school
32:32
Speaker 2: by watching March Madness, by watching sports, and they end
32:35
Speaker 2: up applying to the school and you know, a Gonzaga,
32:39
Speaker 2: you know I mean, and they end up it drives
32:43
Speaker 2: when your school does well in athletics, your applications sow,
32:46
Speaker 2: your your donations from alumni soar and see you end
32:49
Speaker 2: up badly damaging a bunch of schools, not just in sports,
32:52
Speaker 2: but all together, and hurting universities. So what does this
32:56
Speaker 2: bill do? Number One, It explicitly prohibits a super league.
33:00
Speaker 2: It prohibits the Big Ten and the SEC from combining.
33:02
Speaker 2: It just says, no, that's bad for sports, it's bad
33:05
Speaker 2: for athletes, it's bad for football. That is prohibited. Now,
33:09
Speaker 2: you know what, the leadership of the SEC in particular
33:12
Speaker 2: is not happy about prohibiting a super league. But secondly,
33:16
Speaker 2: so the way I looked at this problem, there are
33:18
Speaker 2: two elements. There's a cost element and a revenue element.
33:21
Speaker 2: On the cost side, you want to slow down the
33:24
Speaker 2: out of control spiraling that is bankrupting most of the
33:26
Speaker 2: programs so that the programs can stay vibrant and kids
33:30
Speaker 2: can keep having these opportunities. But on the revenue side,
33:33
Speaker 2: we looked hard for how do we grow the revenue
33:36
Speaker 2: that is available to fund college sports. And what we
33:38
Speaker 2: do is we allow colleges to join together and negotiate
33:42
Speaker 2: for media rights jointly. That I believe will significantly increase
33:48
Speaker 2: the revenue. So, for example, the number one source of
33:51
Speaker 2: eyeballs and revenue in TV is the NFL. It's massive.
33:55
Speaker 2: The number two is college football. And yet amazingly, even
33:58
Speaker 2: though a lot more people watch college football than the NBA,
34:02
Speaker 2: the NBA makes billions more in its media contracts. And
34:06
Speaker 2: there's a reason the NBA negotiates as one unit you
34:09
Speaker 2: don't have the Houston Rockets negotiating against the Knicks and
34:12
Speaker 2: fighting each other, and yet in college conferences that's what
34:15
Speaker 2: you have. So this allows conferences to come together. It's voluntary,
34:19
Speaker 2: so no one's forced to come together.
34:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, no one's forced to.
34:22
Speaker 2: But it lets them come together and negotiate jointly for
34:26
Speaker 2: media rights. I believe that would expand by billions of
34:29
Speaker 2: dollars the money coming in, which means that there's more
34:32
Speaker 2: money for the other sports. And we write in that
34:35
Speaker 2: if you do this, if you get joint media rights,
34:38
Speaker 2: you must maintain every single roster spot and every single
34:41
Speaker 2: scholarship spot for women's and men's sports, for Olympic sports,
34:46
Speaker 2: for track and field, for tennis, for all the non
34:48
Speaker 2: revenue sports. You got to maintain them if you're getting
34:51
Speaker 2: a lot more money through football. And so it's designed
34:53
Speaker 2: to be a win win for everyone. But look, the
34:57
Speaker 2: leadership of the SEC has said that they're not interested.
35:01
Speaker 2: And I look, Greg Sank I know well. Tony Petiti,
35:03
Speaker 2: who leads the Big Ten, I know him well. I've
35:06
Speaker 2: talked to both of them and I've said, listen, this
35:08
Speaker 2: is voluntary. It only works if you guys choose to participate.
35:12
Speaker 2: That means the other schools have to offer you a
35:14
Speaker 2: good enough deal that y'all are making a lot more
35:17
Speaker 2: money and so are they. That is a win win
35:19
Speaker 2: for everyone. That's the outcome. I hope we see because
35:22
Speaker 2: I want to see college sports continue to be an
35:26
Speaker 2: amazing thing for athletes, for students to continue to be
35:29
Speaker 2: an amazing thing for universities, and a great thing for fans. Look,
35:33
Speaker 2: it is an awesome thing to cheer on your school.
35:35
Speaker 2: And you asked about the Lane Kiffin rule. It provides
35:38
Speaker 2: that coaches cannot be hired away during the season or
35:42
Speaker 2: during the playoffs. We adopt the same rule as the NFL,
35:45
Speaker 2: which is you got to wait until the off season,
35:47
Speaker 2: because it's not fair to do what happened to the
35:49
Speaker 2: fans of Ole miss to take their coach right going
35:52
Speaker 2: into the playoffs. That's just wrong.
35:54
Speaker 1: I love it, don't forget. We just chose a podcast
35:56
Speaker 1: three days a week. It is Verdict with Ted Cruz
35:58
Speaker 1: down a at wherever you can and we'll see you
36:00
Speaker 1: back here on this radio station as well next week.