TAMPA, Florida — Decision-makers and lawmakers are discussing edits to the Protect College Sports Act that would cap the number of teams in the Power Four conferences at 19 or 20 and create a structured path for schools to switch conferences, sources told CBS Sports.
Negotiations have intensified ahead of a potential Senate floor vote later this month on the bill that would provide college athletics legal protections and uniform rules on NIL. Republicans proposed a 20-team cap for conferences, a source familiar with discussions told CBS Sports.
The Big Ten and SEC have objected to the portion of the bill that would effectively freeze Power Four membership. The initial language in the bill would have prevented a merger between the two conferences to form a super league, and updated language would bar any conference reporting $700 million or more in revenue from merging with, acquiring or absorbing another conference or its membership.
“When I first read it, it’s like, ‘Why is that even in there?” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said Monday at his conference’s annual media days. “… There are interests that have introduced those issues. We have three or four changes there, if Title II remains, that are critically important to us.”
The new proposal would allow conferences to expand, but any Power Four program seeking to switch conferences would first have to spend at least five years as an independent. The waiting period is designed to slow change and limit the seismic shifts that have reshaped college football over the past decade.
There are two notable exceptions: Notre Dame and UConn could join a Power Four conference immediately because they are already independent, sources said. Under the current bill’s language, Notre Dame would have been blocked from joining a power conference.
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The proposed changes are directly tied to the broader fight over the bill itself. The SEC and Big Ten, the two most powerful conferences in college sports, have refused to back the legislation in its current form and are pushing for revisions before it reaches the floor. Negotiations are ongoing, with some hope of reaching a deal this week, sources in Washington, D.C., said Monday.
Sankey was careful to frame the SEC as a constructive partner, not an opponent, during his 45-minute session with reporters on Monday. The SEC submitted 10 “commonsense suggestions” for the bill in June. The primary focus is on strengthening antitrust and preemption language to address the barrage of lawsuits that college sports have faced in recent years.
“Those 10 concepts are not SEC issues,” Sankey said. “Those are changes that we believe benefit all of college athletics in providing a national solution.”
Sankey said those changes should “fully replace the growing patchwork of state laws that are conflicting and create competitive differences based upon state borders.”
Sankey said Monday that not all of their demands need to be met, but he was unclear on whether the conference would offer a full-throated endorsement if select disagreements were settled.
“Do you have to bat a thousand? You never give up things in those conversations,” he said.
The growing uncertainty around the legislation prompted conversations within the Big Ten and SEC ranks about self-governance models, a de facto breakaway from the NCAA.
“They’re real,” Sankey said. “People have talked about that. They’ve opined about the frustrations that bring them to the point of saying we should look at something significantly different.
“I do not believe that is a leverage point. I think that’s just honest communication.”
He added that there is “meaning and value” remaining in the NCAA. “But that national organization must function in a healthy manner; otherwise, that simmering will continue.”
The SEC’s core objections to the bipartisan bill drafted by Sens. Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell run on three fronts. The first is the media-pooling provision in Title II of the bill, which would allow schools to voluntarily pool and jointly negotiate their media rights. The SEC and Big Ten, both locked into massive existing deals — the SEC with ESPN, the Big Ten with CBS and Fox — say the language, as written, exposes them to lawsuits that could effectively force them into a pooling structure against their will. In a memo sent to SEC leaders, Sankey warned the provision “forces the SEC and Big Ten to either play intraconference postseason tournaments or play only other non-pooling conferences or universities in the postseason to replace the CFP.”
The second objection is the private right of action provision, which allows athletes to sue schools over violations of NIL rights, health and safety standards and scholarship protections. Both conferences called the provision too broad, warning that it opens the door to a wave of litigation against member institutions.
The Protect College Sports Act passed the Senate Commerce Committee on a 19-9 bipartisan vote last month and has drawn support from 24 conferences, 267 colleges and universities, and the NFL. But it passed without the backing of the two conferences whose buy-in may ultimately determine whether the bill can survive the floor.
Whether the proposed changes are enough to bring them in remains the central question as the clock runs. Congress is scheduled to enter its summer recess in August, and legislation is expected to slow to a crawl as Washington gears up for midterm elections.
