Sponsors (23)
Introduced July 10, 2025 by Gus Bilirakis · Last progress July 10, 2025
The bill expands student-athletes' pay, safety, and support while increasing federal uniformity and transparency—but it also creates significant compliance costs, limits state authority and some legal remedies, and may constrain local compensation and smaller programs.
Student-athletes can earn NIL and other compensation, hire agents, and gain clearer contract/privacy protections (written-contract rules, privacy for NIL deals, agent disclosures), while some rules cap agent fees and create a compensation-pool floor that increases transparency and athlete representation in governance.
Student-athletes receive stronger health, safety, and academic support: guaranteed medical care and out-of-pocket expense coverage (during enrollment and for years after separation), expanded mental-health services, independent return-to-play decisions, maintained grants-in-aid, and degree-completion aid.
Students, families, and the public gain more transparency about mandatory athletic fees, institutional athletic revenues, and aggregated/anonymized NIL data, helping reveal how fees are used and pressuring institutions to limit wasteful spending.
Students, taxpayers, and colleges face substantial new administrative, reporting, and compliance costs (data collection, verification, studies, agent-certification, monitoring and public disclosures) that are likely to be borne by institutions, students (through fees/tuition), or taxpayers.
Student-athletes — especially at some schools — may see reduced local compensation opportunities because donor restrictions, broad definitions of 'associated' actors, revenue-counting toward pool limits, and pool management can constrain NIL deals and payments.
States and localities lose authority to set or enforce stronger labor, compensation, privacy, or athlete-protection rules (federal preemption of state laws and limits on reclassification as employees), reducing state-level remedies and policy flexibility.
Based on analysis of 12 sections of legislative text.
Requires public reporting of athletic fee use, bans student‑fee support at very high media‑revenue schools, protects NIL rights, regulates agents, and mandates athlete supports at large programs.
Requires colleges to report and publish detailed data on student athletic fees and how those fees are used, and bans use of student fees for athletics at institutions with very large media‑rights revenue beginning in academic year 2028–2029. Protects student athletes’ ability to sign name/image/likeness (NIL) deals and to hire agents, sets contract form and disclosure rules, and creates new supports and medical/degree protections at high‑revenue schools. Also preempts conflicting state and local laws on student‑athlete compensation, directs studies and recurring compliance reports, gives interstate athletic associations new rulemaking powers (including setting minimum compensation pool shares for top earning members), provides limited antitrust immunity for certain actions, and bars treating student athletes as employees solely for participating on varsity teams.