TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Board of Governors is lobbying the Florida delegation regarding the Protect College Sports Act. Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell released a new version of the Protect College Sports Act on Tuesday.

Florida athletic directors spoke with Senators Ashley Moody and Rick Scott about the bill on Monday night. University of Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin confirmed that these messages were delivered during the discussions.

"The senators themselves were engaged, it wasn't staff," Stricklin said. He added that they were asking good questions and that he felt like they have a pretty good sense of the issues involved.

The legislation provides a limited antitrust exemption for the NCAA and its schools to enforce a cap on payments to athletes and rules related to eligibility and transfers. This exemption addresses a gap in existing law, as the Sports Broadcasting Act does not provide any antitrust exemptions to college sports.

The Protect College Sports Act would create a five-year waiting period during which colleges must operate as independents after leaving one of the four largest conferences. The bill also proposes capping the number of teams in each of the Power Four conferences at 19 schools.

The legislation allows schools a $22.5 million cap for retaining athletes on top of the original revenue-sharing cap of $21.3 million. The bill permits colleges to dedicate $5 million toward women's and non-revenue sports.

The combined caps could give schools up to $48.8 million for paying athletes. The bill requires school multimedia rights holders and third parties to provide signed certification that a school is not the source of NIL compensation to the athlete.

"It's the third-party, what has been synthetic NIL, that gets created, because of just the highly competitive nature of the enterprise, that is really hard to govern and track," Stricklin said. The bill preempts state laws on name, image and likeness, eligibility and transfers.

Former GOP state lawmaker serving on the Board of Governors Keith Perry emphasized the urgency of the current legislative window. "Getting something done in Congress is difficult; changing it later is going to be really difficult," Perry said.

"The only opportunity, really, to have any kind of influence is there now," Perry said. President Donald Trump stated that the NIL issue is very close to getting solved during a recent press interaction.

Senator Ted Cruz stated the bill will pass the Senate this week in an interview. Senator Eric Schmitt believes the bill could receive over 80 votes in the Senate, according to a television appearance.

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell noted that final details are still being worked through. The Big Ten and SEC endorsed the legislation on Friday.

The coalition behind the bill includes 27 athletic conferences, more than 360 colleges and universities, the NCAA, NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, the players associations for both the NFL and NBA, and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. The PROTECT Act was sponsored by Rep. Baumgartner, Michael [R-WA-5] and referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce.

Critics have raised concerns about specific provisions within the proposed law. Florida State University board Chair Peter Collins criticized the five-year waiting period for conference departures.

"If I live in California for 30 years — 30 years ago, it was great; today, not so great — [and] I want to move to Florida, [the] government says, 'Sure, you can move to Florida, but you've got to go to Cuba for five years,'" Collins said. "That makes no sense."

Florida International University athletic director Scott Carr suggested that powerful conferences might not adhere strictly to all restrictions. "If you're in the SEC or the Big Ten, you're not really paying attention to that language because those arguably are the two conferences everyone's aspiring to reach," Carr said.

Why It Matters

This legislation establishes a federal framework that preempts state laws on athlete compensation and transfers, creating a uniform national standard. The bill imposes specific financial caps totaling up to $48.8 million per school while restricting conference realignment through a five-year waiting period for departing members. Stakeholders emphasize that the current legislative window offers the only viable opportunity to shape these rules before they become difficult to alter.