Sponsors (25)
Introduced December 2, 2025 by Lori Trahan · Last progress December 2, 2025
The bill expands athletes' ability to profit from NIL, hire representatives, and gain transparency and enforcement remedies, while imposing new reporting, regulatory, and compliance costs that may increase litigation risks, privacy exposures, and disparities between large and smaller athletic programs.
Current and future college student‑athletes (including international students) can legally monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL), hire representation, enter enforceable written contracts for larger deals, and are protected from institutional punishment for NIL activities.
Student‑athletes face lower and clearer agent costs and stronger exit rights because agents would be state‑registered, limited in endorsement fees (4%), and required to allow quick contract termination when the athlete leaves enrollment.
Annual, team‑level financial and participation reporting (machine‑readable and publicly posted) gives students, parents, researchers, and advocates clearer transparency into athletic spending and supports Title IX oversight.
Colleges, conferences, and associations face increased litigation risk and compliance costs (including antitrust exposure) from the new federal standards and clarified liabilities, costs that could be passed to students or athletic programs.
Public, detailed disclosure of team‑level finances together with broad NIL and 'image/likeness' definitions could expose sensitive contractual, donor, or personal data, raising privacy and legal concerns for athletes and institutions.
Explicit treatment of the 'Power Four' and uneven effects of rules and reporting requirements risk entrenching advantages for large programs and imposing disproportionate burdens on smaller schools (including HBCUs).
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Protects athletes’ NIL and representation rights, regulates agents and enforcement, creates a congressional commission, and requires detailed athletics financial reporting starting in 2026–27.
Protects college athletes’ right to be paid for their name, image, and likeness (NIL) and to hire professional representation, limits schools/conferences from restricting or retaliating against those activities, and restricts required disclosure of NIL deal terms. It creates new rules for athlete agents (including a 4% cap on endorsement fees), expands FTC enforcement and private lawsuits for violations, and provides a limited immigration classification for bona fide current international student‑athletes. The bill also creates a bipartisan legislative commission to study governance of college sports, modifies an existing sports‑broadcasting statute (text to be added), and requires colleges to publish detailed, sport‑level athletics financial and participation reports starting for the 2026–2027 academic year.