Sponsors (3)
Introduced September 29, 2025 by Maria E. Cantwell · Last progress September 29, 2025
The bill significantly expands college athletes’ rights to earn NIL income, receive medical protections, and move between schools, while creating new enforcement powers and protections for athletes — at the cost of substantial compliance, administrative, and litigation burdens on institutions that could raise costs for students, donors, and smaller schools and reduce some local control and transparency.
College student‑athletes (including international F‑1 athletes) can be paid for name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals, receive reasonable third‑party benefits, hire agents with capped fees, and access a wider set of sponsorship opportunities.
Student‑athletes gain stronger health and safety protections: guaranteed in‑season out‑of‑pocket medical coverage, five years of post‑eligibility coverage, independent medical authority, evidence‑based safety standards, and catastrophic/post‑eligibility injury funds.
Students receive reinforced scholarship and academic protections: guaranteed tuition/books/fees coverage after injury or poor performance with timely notice before reductions, and rules to preserve roster/scholarship levels (protecting non‑revenue and women’s programs).
Colleges, conferences, nonprofits, and boosters face much greater litigation exposure and potential large liabilities because of a broadened private right of action, treble damages/back pay, and invalidation of pre‑dispute arbitration/class waivers.
The bill imposes substantial new administrative, reporting, and compliance burdens (medical coverage administration, independent officers, agent/collective rules, verification for F‑1 participation, roster baselines), which will raise costs and staff needs for institutions and regulatory bodies.
Higher real costs for medical coverage, post‑eligibility care, catastrophic funds, and guaranteed scholarships may be passed to students and families via higher fees or tuition, or lead institutions to cut programs (especially at smaller schools).
Based on analysis of 24 sections of legislative text.
Establishes federal protections for college athletes’ NIL rights, transfers, scholarships, health/safety, broadcasting rules, FTC enforcement, and F‑1 work authorization for NIL activities.
Creates a federal framework that protects college student‑athletes’ ability to earn money from their name, image, and likeness (NIL), limits institutional restrictions on NIL and representation, guarantees transfer and scholarship protections, and strengthens health, safety, and medical coverage rules. It also changes broadcasting rules for college games, adds FTC enforcement and state‑attorney‑general remedies for violations, and authorizes work permission for certain F‑1 student athletes to participate in NIL commercial activities. Imposes new requirements on institutions, conferences, and athletic associations (including independent health officers, annual notices, and specified medical and catastrophic coverage), requires associations to establish athlete ombuds offices, preempts conflicting state NIL laws while preserving some state limits (e.g., alcohol/tobacco/gambling endorsements), and authorizes necessary funding to implement the Act.