Congress Wants to Save College Sports. FSU Should Read the Fine Print.
If you’ve heard Nick Saban wrote a college sports bill, no. He did not write it. Senators did. Saban has helped promote it — testifying, talking it up on TV, and appearing in ads. That’s it.
The bill is the Protect College Sports Act of 2026. On Tuesday the Senate voted 74–24 to stop a filibuster and keep it moving. It still needs a final Senate vote and then the House. Not law yet.
The short version of why this exists.
College athletes used to get scholarships, not paychecks. Then NIL happened, then a lawsuit let schools share revenue directly with players. Boosters started bidding wars. Players started changing schools every year like they were changing apartments. The NCAA tried to write rules and got sued. States wrote 50 different laws.
Somebody in Washington finally said: tap the brakes.
Who wrote it?
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri), and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware). An earlier House bill, the SCORE Act, never made it to a floor vote.
What it would actually do?
Players can still get paid. The point is one national rulebook.
• One NIL standard instead of 50 state versions
• A spending cap (about $21 million in revenue share this year), plus extra money to keep current players — up to roughly $50 million all-in
• One free undergraduate transfer; a second one usually costs a year
• Five years of eligibility; former paid pros generally out
• Agents registered, fees capped at 5%
• Coaches can’t jump midseason and start working the new job immediately
• A limited legal shield so the NCAA can enforce rules without living in court
• Guardrails so big schools can’t quietly gut women’s and Olympic sports
It does not turn Saturdays into the NFL. It also does not declare athletes employees who can unionize.
Could this help FSU?
Some of it, yes. The part FSU has been screaming about for years? Not so much.
Helpful: A harder national cap slows the Alabama-and-Ohio-State arms race FSU has to chase with ACC TV money. Transfer limits could mean fewer January roster evacuations. FSU has been living in that portal — 20-plus transfers, a roster full of new names, and an athletic budget now heading past $250 million just to keep up. Stability would be a gift. So would a rule that says you can’t keep cutting Olympic sports to feed football.
Not helpful: The conference parts look like a problem in Tallahassee. The bill limits how big the richest leagues can get and makes it harder to hop conferences. For FSU, that can freeze the Big Ten as a realistic landing spot and leave “escape the ACC” looking a lot like “escape into nowhere.” Florida State has spent years arguing its TV value subsidizes the ACC. Pooled national media rights, if they ever happen, could spread that value around instead of paying FSU what FSU thinks it’s worth — and existing TV contracts are now protected, so any pooling talk is a 2036 problem anyway.
Translation: the bill may make the sport stable. It may also lock the Seminoles into the conference they have been trying to leave.
Where it stands?
Senate is on the 1-yard line after the 74–24 vote. House is still the problem and President Trump has said he wants something to sign.
If it passes: one rulebook, slower transfers, a ceiling on the madness. If it dies: same circus, same lawsuits, same booster auction.
Saban helped sell it. Cruz and Cantwell wrote it. FSU should care less about the press tour and more about whether “saving college sports” also means saving Florida State a way out of the ACC.