The “Protect College Sports Act” just blasted through another major step in Congress, making some serious noise in the U.S. Senate on Thursday. This massive 150-plus page bill, all about regulating the wild world of college sports, passed its second procedural motion with a sweeping 77 votes. That’s a huge win, especially when you remember they only needed a simple majority out of 100 senators, and they even topped the 74 votes from the first round. Senator Eric Schmitt, one of the bill’s co-authors, wasn’t kidding when he said, “That’s a big number. You can’t get 80 votes in the Senate to congratulate Santa Clause.” This thing is barreling forward, with ratification possible as early as next week if all goes according to plan.
The Senate Swings Hard On Conference Moves
This vote wasn’t just a simple rubber stamp. There was a key tweak to a super hot topic: the expansion provision. Lawmakers actually revised it to give schools way more flexibility when they want to jump conferences. Think about it, who wants to be stuck? The change cuts the independent probationary period for power conference schools moving to another power league from five years down to three. Plus, that probationary period totally disappears after six years from the bill’s enactment. Smart, right? But don’t get it twisted, the cap of 19 schools for power conference membership is still locked in place. Two senators, Tommy Tuberville and Alex Padilla, even flipped their votes from “no” to “yes” for this Thursday’s vote. This bill means business, and it is trying to make some real changes.
The House Hold-Up: Midterms, Trump, and Florida Trouble
So, the Senate is doing its thing, but now the giant question mark hangs over the House of Representatives. House leaders ended their session early this week and aren’t even scheduled to come back until after the midterm elections in mid-November. Seriously? Senators Ted Cruz and Schmitt are both publicly hoping that House leadership, like Speaker Mike Johnson and Leader Steve Scalise, will actually take up the legislation *before* the elections if the Senate passes it big. But Johnson already said earlier this week that he expects the House to punt on this until *after* the elections. Senator Schmitt mentioned “initial communication” with the Speaker and said “the president will care a lot about that too.” Speaking of, President Donald Trump, an ardent supporter of the bill, has been leaning on House leaders to get back to work in October. He even praised Thursday’s vote on social media, but also took shots at the two Republican “no” votes from Florida, Rick Scott and Ashley Moody. Moody even tried to amend the expansion provision last month but got shot down. This expansion provision is still a super divisive concept, apparently it’s even split up the ACC! And with states like Florida, California, and the Carolinas holding over 100 delegates in the House, that could be a huge problem.
What’s next? The Senate’s gearing up for its third and final procedural vote as early as Tuesday, with a final vote to adopt the legislation possibly by next Thursday. After that, it’s all on the House. Will they listen to President Trump and the senators who want this done before the elections? Or will they push it off until after midterms, leaving college sports in limbo? This fight isn’t over, not by a long shot.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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