Last week, President Donald Trump announced an executive order protecting college sports. This is an important step to end the pernicious assault on the industry by labor agitators and plaintiff attorneys.
But to truly save the industry, Trump should work with Congress to pass critical legislation to save college sports.
The good news is that Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., recently introduced the Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements (SCORE) Act in the House of Representatives. This bill will empower governing bodies in intercollegiate athletics to regulate the industry by providing an exemption to antitrust legislation similar to that enjoyed by Major League Baseball since the 1920s. The bill recently advanced through committee and is on track for a full House vote.
The SCORE Act is needed to prevent college sports from being sucked into a web of litigation that will ultimately threaten it with insolvency or, worse, become a unionized, for-profit, professionalized system that would be a shadow of its former self. The bill faces significant opposition from the Left, the legacy media, and special interests, who would prefer to see the pastime destroyed.
To understand how we got here, we need to rewind to the surging popularity of broadcast television in the latter part of the 20th century. Initially, this mode of dissemination was seen as a competitor to in-person attendance and was restricted by the NCAA. In response, the schools and conferences pursued legal action, ultimately leading to the landmark 1984 Supreme Court decision in NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, whereby the NCAA was ruled to have violated antitrust rules. This disintermediated the NCAA from a lion’s share of college sports revenue and severely undermined its ability to act as an overriding regulator.
Today, we are witnessing name, image, and likeness (NIL) arrangements (essentially a form of sponsorship for college athletes), transfer portal activity, third-party agents, and conduct that is largely unfettered except through a patchwork of conflicting state laws.
The alternative to an antitrust exemption would be for student athletes and colleges and universities to engage in collective bargaining arrangements, which presupposes an employer-employee relationship between the parties. While this option of fully professionalizing intercollegiate athletics is highly touted by leftists and labor activists, it carries substantial negative consequences that are not well understood.
First and foremost, it would eradicate the charitable status that college sports have enjoyed throughout their existence and severely reduce or eliminate the ability of revenue-generating sports to subsidize non-revenue sports. Further, the loss of 501(c)(3) status would prohibit athletics programs from soliciting tax-deductible donations that many programs use to balance their budgets. In addition, as W-2 employees, players would likely relinquish their lucrative NIL rights in exchange for a base salary that may barely cover tuition on an after-tax basis.
College sports is one of the dwindling number of institutions in this country that are uniquely American. As a form of entertainment, it is not only ingrained in the fabric of life in the United States, but it is also how hundreds of thousands of student-athletes finance their education in pursuit of the American dream. Trump and Republicans have an opportunity with the recent executive order and the SCORE Act legislation to ensure that this does not become another nostalgic relic of the past but rather persists for generations of students and fans to come.
Although it would be preferable for Democrats to work with Republicans to prevent the demise of college sports, the GOP cannot afford to wait for a wave of bipartisanship to wash over Washington.
Trump and Republicans should grab the bull by its horns and support the SCORE Act, which would unequivocally establish that student athletes are not employees of the schools and avoid a catastrophe that leaves everyone worse off—including the millions of Americans who cherish college sports and its traditions.
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