S. 4668: Protect College Sports Act of 2026

Bill · 119th Congress (2025–2026). Passed Senate, 28 Sep 2026. Introduced 2 Jun 2026.

Official title: A bill to protect the name, image, and likeness rights of, and provide protections for, student athletes and to promote fair competition among intercollegiate athletics, and for other purposes.

Vote results

House: not yet considered.
Senate, 28 Sep 2026: Bill Passed, 77 Yea, 22 Nay, 0 Present, 1 Not voting. The Senate’s roll call
President: Not before the President yet: both chambers must pass it first.

How each member voted

Senate

Yea (77): Chuck Grassley (R-IA); Ron Wyden (D-OR); Richard J. Durbin (D-IL); Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Mike Crapo (R-ID); Patty Murray (D-WA); Roger F. Wicker (R-MS); Susan M. Collins (R-ME); Jerry Moran (R-KS); Tammy Baldwin (D-WI); Maria Cantwell (D-WA); John Thune (R-SD); Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV); John Boozman (R-AR); John Cornyn (R-TX); Lisa Murkowski (R-AK); Marsha Blackburn (R-TN); Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI); Amy Klobuchar (D-MN); Peter Welch (D-VT); John Barrasso (R-WY); Bill Cassidy (R-LA); Martin Heinrich (D-NM); Ben Ray Luján (D-NM); Gary C. Peters (D-MI); James E. Risch (R-ID); Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH); Mark R. Warner (D-VA); Michael F. Bennet (D-CO); Christopher A. Coons (D-DE); John Hoeven (R-ND); Ron Johnson (R-WI); James Lankford (R-OK); Mike Lee (R-UT); Tim Scott (R-SC); Todd Young (R-IN); Brian Schatz (D-HI); Tom Cotton (R-AR); Kevin Cramer (R-ND); Ted Cruz (R-TX); Steve Daines (R-MT); Deb Fischer (R-NE); Angus S. King, Jr. (I-ME); Cynthia M. Lummis (R-WY); Joni Ernst (R-IA); Ruben Gallego (D-AZ); Mike Rounds (R-SD); Thom Tillis (R-NC); Jim Banks (R-IN); Ted Budd (R-NC); Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV); Margaret Wood Hassan (D-NH); John Kennedy (R-LA); Roger Marshall (R-KS); Jacky Rosen (D-NV); John R. Curtis (R-UT); Tina Smith (D-MN); Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS); Josh Hawley (R-MO); Elissa Slotkin (D-MI); Bill Hagerty (R-TN); John W. Hickenlooper (D-CO); Tommy Tuberville (R-AL); Jon Ossoff (D-GA); Alex Padilla (D-CA); Katie Boyd Britt (R-AL); John Fetterman (D-PA); Eric Schmitt (R-MO); Pete Ricketts (R-NE); David McCormick (R-PA); Bernie Moreno (R-OH); Tim Sheehy (R-MT); James C. Justice (R-WV); Jon Husted (R-OH); Ashley Moody (R-FL); Alan Armstrong (R-OK); Darline Graham (R-SC).

Nay (22): Edward J. Markey (D-MA); Charles E. Schumer (D-NY); Jack Reed (D-RI); Bernard Sanders (I-VT); Adam B. Schiff (D-CA); Chris Van Hollen (D-MD); Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D-NY); Christopher Murphy (D-CT); Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI); Jeff Merkley (D-OR); Richard Blumenthal (D-CT); Rand Paul (R-KY); Tammy Duckworth (D-IL); Tim Kaine (D-VA); Elizabeth Warren (D-MA); Cory A. Booker (D-NJ); Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE); Andy Kim (D-NJ); Rick Scott (R-FL); Mark Kelly (D-AZ); Raphael G. Warnock (D-GA); Angela D. Alsobrooks (D-MD).

Not voting (1): Dan Sullivan (R-AK).

Not in office (4): Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Marco Rubio (R-FL); Markwayne Mullin (R-OK); J.D. Vance (R-OH).

House

Not yet considered.

Summary

Main subject: Sets federal rules for name, image, and likeness compensation, athlete agents, transfers, health protections and revenue sharing for college student athletes, limits antitrust liability for related athletic association rules and for pooled sales of college sports media rights, and creates a grant program for broadband and media infrastructure at eligible institutions. Sec. 101, Sec. 114, Sec. 202, Sec. 302

Its core areas: Student athlete name, image, and likeness rights and disclosures; Athlete agent registration and endorsement contracts; Revenue share cap and retention fund; Student athlete medical coverage, health and safety standards, and academic protections; Transfer, eligibility, and recruitment rules; Protection of non-revenue sports opportunities; Antitrust exemption for pooled college sports media rights; Grants for broadband and sports media infrastructure at eligible institutions.

Unexpected Items: 18 provisions

These provisions fall outside the bill’s main subject or apply narrowly. This describes the text; it is not a judgment.

Not related to the bill’s main subject (10)

Sec. 108: Office of the Student Athlete Ombudsman: Requires an intercollegiate athletic association to establish an Office of the Student Athlete Ombudsman that advises student athletes, assists with concerns, and is funded by the association.
Sec. 109: Comparable standards for access to facilities, services, and events: Requires intercollegiate athletic associations and conferences to maintain comparable standards for lodging, meals, transportation, publicity and other items across similarly situated men’s and women’s athletic programs.
Sec. 110: Rules governing certain mid-season coaching transitions: Bars a football head coach or coordinator who served at one institution during a season from performing head-coach duties at another institution in the same season, and sets ineligibility penalties. It applies only to Football Bowl Subdivision institutions.
Sec. 111: Student athlete representation on intercollegiate athletic association governing boards: Requires at least one-third of the membership and voting power of intercollegiate athletic association governing boards and rule-making committees to be current student athletes or recent graduate former student athletes.
Sec. 116: Commission on the Future of College Athletics: Creates a 24-member congressional commission, with a Student Athlete Retention Council inside it, to study and make recommendations on the future of college athletics, with reports due at 30 months and 5 years and funding of such sums as may be necessary.
Sec. 118: Limitation on liability: Provides that it is not unlawful under the antitrust laws for athletic associations, conferences, or institutions to enforce or comply with listed sections and to impose fines and eligibility restrictions, conditioned on the association adopting implementing rules.
Sec. 126: Mid-sized conference representation on intercollegiate athletic association governing boards: Requires an intercollegiate athletic association to give conferences with under $500,000,000 in annual revenue adequate representation on its governing boards and rulemaking committees. ($500,000,000)
Sec. 128: Protecting opportunities for American student athletes: States as U.S. policy that institutions participating in intercollegiate athletics should prioritize domestic students in selecting student athletes and awarding grant-in-aid and roster positions.
Sec. 129: Disclosure of foreign financing of intercollegiate athletics: Requires institutions, conferences and intercollegiate athletic associations to disclose amounts over $600 received from foreign governments, foreign adversaries, state-owned enterprises or sovereign wealth funds. Associations must report annually to Congress and the Secretary of Education and publish the disclosures. ($600)
Sec. 205: Prohibition on certain conference mergers or acquisition: Makes it unlawful for certain conferences that reported more than $700,000,000 in revenue to merge with or acquire assets or media rights of other conferences or institutions under stated conditions, and voids such transactions. It exempts conferences at or below that revenue level. ($700,000,000)

Different amount for specific places or groups (1)

Sec. 114: Prohibited compensation and agreements: Sets a $500,000 limit on payments or benefits to a coach or team manager from funds other than college sports revenue or athletic department donations, for institutions with more than $80,000,000 in annual athletics revenue. ($500,000)

Exception or delay for a subset (7)

Sec. 119: Private right of action: Sets out who may sue under the title, and then provides that claims by parties subject to the injunctive relief in a named court settlement follow that settlement's procedure notwithstanding the limits on pre-dispute arbitration.
Sec. 125: Protection of women’s sports and Olympic sports: Requires institutions to keep 2024–2025 levels of grant-in-aid and roster spots for non-revenue sports, using different sunset dates and exemption terms for institutions reporting at least $80,000,000 in athletics revenue and those reporting $50,000,000 to under $80,000,000.
Sec. 203: Requirements for entities selling media rights: Sets conditions for the antitrust exemption for pooled college media rights sales, and excepts from the pooled rights the NCAA basketball tournaments and College Football Playoff postseason games occurring before August 1, 2032.
Sec. 206: Amendments to intercollegiate and interscholastic football contest limitations: Adds a January 8 end date, where practicable, for the football season and postseason. It also removes the college sports antitrust exemption for agreements permitting telecasts of postseason football during a window around the annual Army-Navy game.
Sec. 101: Name, image, and likeness protections: Limits the athlete disclosure requirements to student athletes and prospective student athletes of institutions whose primary membership is in Division I, so athletes at other institutions are not covered by those disclosure rules.
Sec. 104: Disclosures and establishment of name, image, and likeness agreement database: Limits the institution disclosure and database requirements to Division I institutions and exempts any Division II or Division III institution that participates in a limited number of sports at the Division I level.
Sec. 123: Applicability: Applies Sec. 113(c)(1)(B) to actions pending or commenced on or after enactment, limits the rest of the Act to actions commenced on or after the effective date, and provides that nothing in it undermines the Benefits Pool Limit in the settlement in In Re College Athlete NIL Litigation, No. 20–cv–03919, unless that litigation results in it.

What it does

Sec. 101: Bars institutions, conferences, and intercollegiate athletic associations from restricting student athletes from marketing or earning compensation for their name, image, or likeness or from entering name, image, and likeness agreements, subject to listed exceptions.
Sec. 101: Requires Division I student athletes to report to their institution and athletic association name, image, and likeness agreements and compensation that exceed $600 in value.
Sec. 102: Amends the Sports Agent Responsibility and Trust Act to require athlete agents to register with a State before representing a student athlete in an endorsement contract, and bars fees above 5 percent of the value of the endorsement contract.
Sec. 114: Bars institutions, conferences, and associated entities from providing compensation that would circumvent the revenue share cap, and lets an institution exceed the cap by not more than $22,500,000 per academic year for retention during a nine-year period.
Sec. 106: Requires Division I institutions to provide student athletes' out-of-pocket medical expenses for injuries from participation, catastrophic injury insurance for costs that exceed $90,000, and five years of post-eligibility medical expense coverage.
Sec. 112: Requires that a student athlete be permitted to transfer between four-year institutions once without losing or delaying eligibility, and a second time with loss of eligibility during the first academic year after transfer, except in listed circumstances.
Sec. 125: Bars Division I associations and conferences from reducing the number of varsity teams institutions must sponsor, and requires institutions with at least $80,000,000 in annual athletics revenue to keep non-revenue sports grant-in-aid and roster spots at academic year 2024-2025 levels for nine years.
Sec. 202: Provides that the antitrust laws do not apply to a joint agreement by institutions or conferences to form a covered entity that meets the Sports Broadcasting Act requirements and sells or transfers their sponsored telecasting rights to a third party.
Sec. 203: Requires the covered entity to include at least 75 percent of institutions in the Football Bowl Subdivision and to offer membership on fair and nondiscriminatory terms to each Division I conference and institution.
Sec. 302: Directs the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Telecommunications and Information to award competitive grants to eligible entities for broadband, information technology, and media infrastructure, including infrastructure for live coverage of intercollegiate athletic events.

Written automatically from the official text by Claude Sonnet 5.5, an AI model. Approved for publication 1 Oct 2026. Every line names the section it came from.