​Former University of Alabama Head Football Coach Nick Saban, from left, speaks as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, listens during a roundtable on the future of college athletics and the need to codify name, image and likeness rights for student athletes, on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, March 12, 2024, in Washington.
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Manuel Balce Ceneta
The Big Ten and Southeastern Conferences agreed Friday night to support a Senate bill that seeks to regulate college sports, ending a breakneck week of negotiations and pulling the bipartisan measure out of what looked like a certain death spiral.School presidents from both conferences voted to back the bill after receiving last-minute concessions over language regarding third-party name-image-likeness deals and the so-called “associated entities” that often broker those arrangements between players and schools.More details need to be worked out, but the headline is that the bill still has a chance to earn the 60 votes it needs to halt debate and head to an up-or-down vote before the Senate heads for summer break next Friday.The summer recess is increasingly looking like an intractable deadline for the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan effort headed by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.After the conferences, which had balked at large sections of the bill, put out a short release announcing they supported the act “as currently drafted,” Cruz put out a short statement on social media thanking the leagues and saying: “Let’s save college sports.” And Cantwell said: “Good. Now progress can be made in protecting women and Olympic athletes and moving the legislation closer to the President’s desk.”President Donald Trump, who has also been seeking fixes for an industry that now pays its players millions, got involved late Thursday, which helped push the parties back to the negotiating table.Cody Campbell, the Texas Tech regent who has played a big role in shaping this policy, called the SEC and Big Ten support “ a major breakthrough that moves us closer to a Senate vote — and a better future” for college sports.Increased salary cap, new language entice holdout leaguesThe most groundbreaking part of the reworked deal is the $27.5 million that schools would be allotted to retain players, in addition to the $21.3 million cap that already exists.It could represent a major reworking of the House settlement — the groundbreaking agreement that governs paying players. The idea is that the extra money will take the place of payments from “associated entities” that were allowed above and beyond the $21.3 million cap. It was those payments that, many schools complained, obliterated any idea o