Senate softens realignment rules in revised Protect College Sports Act, opens door for movement in 2030s

The Protect College Sports Act's updated text, released Thursday night, softened the language around conference realignment, making it easier for programs to move from one power conference to another, as TV contracts among the power conferences are set to expire in the early 2030s. 

Most of the bill's text from early August remained, but the most noticeable tweak made public Thursday concerned conference expansion and realignment, which was initially designed to effectively freeze membership. The update weakened the text and now includes a six-year expiration window for schools in the power conferences to move freely without a waiting period. 

The U.S. Senate voted 77-22 on Thursday to move the Protect College Sports Act toward debate and possible final passage next week. The bill still faces hurdles if it passes through the Senate next week, most notably midterm elections. Growing doubt now suggests the bill won't be considered on the House floor before November. 

The major sections in the updated text remained, including the $22.5 million retention fund for schools, to be combined with its revenue-sharing cap, set at $21.6 million for the 2026-27 academic year. But there were some important tweaks elsewhere, including the section on conference realignment that the power conferences pushed back on this summer.

Here's a breakdown of what changed in the bill's updated text: 

Conference realignment 

The bill's most significant changes Thursday touched on conference realignment. 

Initially, the bill required a school to serve a five-year probationary period as an independent before joining another power conference. The update dropped that number to three years as an independent or a member of a conference earning less than $700 million annually in revenue. 

The most striking update: the provision expires after six years. 

That means any program six years after the bill's passage can leave a power conference (or any conference with $700 million in annual revenue) for another without serving a mandatory three-year buffer period outside of a power conference. Conferences remain capped at 19 members, giving the Big Ten room for one more program and the SEC up to three new members. 

The bill contains a second, broader prohibition that the new text leaves intact, which appears to primarily target outside forces, such as private equity groups, from building a super league. Nobody, including outside investors, can buy up power-conference schools to build a breakaway league. A school that leaves the SEC is off limits to league builders for five years, and that rule never sunsets.

Why six years matters

The bill still faces hurdles and must pass the Senate and then the House, but if the President signs it into law, the six-year realignment provision would end around 2032 or 2033. 

Those years matter, as that date falls smack dab in the middle of a slew of expiring media rights for college athletics' largest conferences and postseason events. 

The six-year rule covers the Big Ten and Big 12 renewals. The clock runs out around the CFP and NCAA Tournament negotiations. And the no-waiting era arrives before the SEC's deal expires in 2034, long before the ACC's deal with ESPN expires in 2037. 

Realignment has always hinged on television money. In the 2020s, TV money (or the lack thereof) effectively killed the Pac-12 and expanded the Big Ten and SEC. Major Pac-12 programs Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington defected to the Big Ten, while the Big 12 absorbed four castoffs to offset the departures of OU and Texas to the SEC. 

The bill builds a fence around the next wave of realignment, but takes it down before the decade's biggest TV contracts go to auction. Concerns over exorbitant exit costs exceeding $500 million previously hindered schools like Clemson and Florida State from leaving the ACC, sparking intra-conference litigation that was ultimately settled. 

In response, the ACC revamped its exit fee structure with a descending scale, lowering the penalty from $165 million to a flat $75 million by 2030, a timeframe that comfortably aligns with the bill's six-year window. 

Schools must graduate players to spend retention money

The proposed $22.5 million retention fund for players brought the Big Ten and SEC on board in August. It allows schools to spend above the revenue-sharing cap ($21.6 million) to keep their own players. 

The new text attaches a condition that wasn't there six weeks ago: a school that fails to hit graduation rate and academic progress benchmarks loses the fund entirely. 

What those benchmarks will be, and whether they will follow current guidelines attached to systems such as the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate, is unknown. The bill leaves that up to the NCAA and the conferences to determine.

Athletes get faster route to court

The bill normally requires plaintiffs to give 30 days' notice and allow time to fix a problem before suing. The new text drops that umbrella for cases involving physical injury, death, or sexual abuse or misconduct so that those complaints can go straight to court. 

The bill also narrows the scope of state law it wipes out. The August version preempted states across its entire eligibility section. The new text names only four subjects: student status, academic requirements, professional status and years of eligibility. States keep more room on everything else, including drug testing, gambling and campus conduct rules. 

Related changes allow states, schools and conferences to set tougher health and safety standards than the federal floor and put the NCAA on the hook for ensuring that members comply. Medical coverage requirements are now explicitly a minimum, not a ceiling.

Other tweaks

The bill still protects the five-year eligibility limit and the House settlement's pay cap from older lawsuits unwinding them, while preserving past damages claims. 

The congressional commission the bill creates takes on a new assignment: to study whether athletes should be able to hold a financial stake tied to their program's value.

Its safety review must also now examine athlete injuries and deaths, and whether campus health officers can actually report independently.