Sponsors (23)
Official title: To protect the name, image, and likeness rights of student athletes and to promote fair competition with respect to intercollegiate athletics, and for other purposes.
Introduced July 10, 2025 by Gus Bilirakis · Last progress July 10, 2025
The bill expands and standardizes student-athlete pay, protections, healthcare, and transparency nationwide—benefiting athletes and simplifying interstate compliance—at the cost of significant new institutional expenses, added administrative and legal complexity, reduced state policymaking authority, and the loss of a route to employee protections for athletes.
Student-athletes nationwide gain materially expanded and clearer opportunities to earn (NIL deals, paid work, regulated compensation) and to hire agents, increasing direct income and commercial access for players.
Students on varsity teams receive stronger health and academic protections: guaranteed medical and mental-health coverage (during enrollment and for years after separation), access to injury/disability insurance, and up to seven years of degree-completion aid for eligible former athletes.
Students, families, and the public get much greater transparency and oversight: annual, itemized student athletic fee reporting, mandatory NIL and compensation disclosures/monitoring, and federal/state reporting and studies to track compliance and trends.
Colleges and conferences face substantial new costs and recurring administrative burdens (benefits, insurance, reporting, compliance), which are likely to be passed on as higher student fees, tuition increases, cuts to non-athletic programs, or greater taxpayer support.
The Act preempts many state laws, reducing states' ability to set local rules (e.g., stricter eligibility, consent, or NIL restrictions) and potentially eliminating stronger consumer/academic protections some states had adopted.
Student-athletes are barred from employee classification under federal law, removing access to wage-law protections, collective bargaining, and employment benefits that could otherwise apply to players who perform work-like functions.
Based on analysis of 12 sections of legislative text.
Creates federal NIL protections and agent rules, mandates athletic revenue and fee disclosures, limits student-fee use at very high media-rights schools, and imposes benefits and governance rules for large programs.
Requires colleges to disclose detailed athletic revenue and student fee use, bars use of student fees at very high media-rights revenue schools, and creates federal protections for student-athlete name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights and agent interactions. It also directs athletic associations to set rules on NIL disclosure, compensation pool floors, transfers, agent registration, and competition governance, and imposes new academic, health, and benefit requirements for large-revenue programs. Establishes federal preemption of conflicting state laws, tasks the FTC and Comptroller General with studies and recurring reports, provides limited antitrust treatment for rules adopted under the law, and clarifies that student-athletes are not employees solely by virtue of participation in varsity sports.