Somewhere in college sports, somebody needs to put down the coaching hot board and pick up the congressional calendar.
Tuesday’s election could have enormous consequences for this industry. Democrats won control of the House and Senate, with Senate victories reaching into Texas and South Carolina. Yes, SEC country. Associated Press
The people running college sports have spent years asking Washington to help stabilize their business. Now the people they must negotiate with are about to change.
If the Protect College Sports Act doesn’t become law before this Congress ends, the next negotiation could come with a very different set of demands.
That should get the attention of every commissioner, athletic director, booster and coaching agent in America.
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Let’s get an important fact straight: this was never an exclusively Republican bill.
The Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act 77–22 on September 28. Maria Cantwell was a central Democratic negotiator alongside Ted Cruz, and several other Democrats co-sponsored it. Any argument that she was the only Democrat involved falls apart immediately. Senate Commerce Committee
That bipartisan work matters. It also makes the question facing college sports more interesting: can its leaders preserve that coalition as power changes hands?
There is a difference between negotiating a bipartisan bill and publicly attaching your industry’s rescue mission to a president.
At the March White House college sports roundtable, Donald Trump sat with the sport’s most powerful figures, including Greg Sankey, Nick Saban and Cody Campbell. Lori Trahan was the only Democratic lawmaker present. Current college athletes were absent.
That was a choice about whose voices belonged in the room.
I understand pursuing the people who hold power. Republicans controlled Congress and the White House. Of course college sports leaders were going to work with them.
But I’ve been warning about the danger of getting too comfortable with one political camp. I once made that argument and got told I was being too political.
When commissioners ask politicians to write the rules governing athlete compensation, transfers and the economics of the sport, politics is already part of the story. Examining their strategy is part of covering college sports.
You can’t invite Washington to help run your business and then act offended when somebody asks what happens after an election.
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There is still time for the current Congress to act. The House is expected to revisit the legislation during its lame-duck session, and its prospects remain uncertain.
But “before the holidays” is shorthand. The actual deadline is the end of this Congress in January. If the bill hasn’t become law, legislation must be introduced again in the new Congress. If the House changes the Senate’s text, both chambers must agree on the same version before it can reach the president.
So I’m not declaring the bill dead. A 77-vote Senate coalition is a substantial achievement.
I am saying that unfinished business becomes somebody else’s negotiating opportunity.
Democratic control will give Democrats more ability to decide which proposals receive hearings, what reaches the floor and what protections they demand in exchange for their votes. It won’t make them unanimous, erase Senate procedural hurdles or remove Trump’s veto.
Nor does one terrible election for Republicans mean Trump has no power left. He remains president. His signature still matters.
But access to him cannot substitute for agreement with the people who will control Congress.
And we already have a concrete example of how different that conversation could become.
During the Senate debate, Cory Booker offered an amendment that would have capped institution-paid coaching compensation at $5 million annually under new agreements and generally limited buyouts to one year’s compensation. It failed, 47–52. That cap is not in the Senate-passed bill. Congressional Record, September 28
Nobody should read that and conclude a coaching salary cap is now inevitable. It isn’t. Even Democrats differed: Cantwell voted against that amendment.
But the proposal exists. The argument behind it is easy for fans to understand: if college sports needs Washington to restrain spending on players, why should the adults’ compensation escape comparable scrutiny?
Could Jimmy Sexton eventually have more reason to worry about this election than some of the politicians who lost?
That’s a joke. Mostly. The serious point is that asking Congress to regulate your industry means accepting that lawmakers might regulate something you wanted left alone.
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This is also why I’ll be watching how the sport talks about collective bargaining.
Negotiating compensation and working conditions with athletes raises real legal and organizational challenges, especially across public and private universities. An election doesn’t make those disappear.
But incentives change. If congressional help becomes less attractive to the people running the sport, will negotiating directly with athletes suddenly become a more appealing option?
That’s a question worth asking. Watch whether the willingness to solve the complications changes when the alternatives change.
There is a state-level story here, too, but precision matters.
A Democratic U.S. senator from South Carolina does not take over the state’s university boards. A new governor in Texas does not take over the SEC.
Texas is the more direct governance development: incoming governor Gina Hinojosa will have appointment and veto powers, although their practical reach will depend on state law, vacancies and the legislature. University leadership changes through those processes, not overnight.
For Sankey and the SEC, the immediate lesson is straightforward: even the political map around your own campuses can change. Relationships with elected officials need to survive that change.
I’m not arguing that college sports should have bet everything on Democrats instead. I’m arguing that an industry asking for lasting federal rules needs lasting relationships across party lines—and a proposal that can survive scrutiny from people who care as much about athletes’ rights as institutional control.
The Senate coalition proves that cooperation is possible. The election makes preserving it more urgent.
College sports may still get Washington’s help.
But the people who have spent years asking for it should prepare to hear a question they may not enjoy answering:
What are you willing to give up to get it?
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