Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says the Protect College Sports Act that passed the Senate on Monday should have far-reaching benefits for his alma mater, the University of Northern Iowa, and the state’s other Division One schools.
The bill’s crafters say it would overhaul and stabilize college athletics by trading state-level rules for a single national rulebook, while setting national standards for Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) agreements, transfers, and more.
“UNI, that size school, and that’s not a small school, and it’d be even worse for schools like Warburg and Coe and the other private colleges we have,” Grassley says, “so much resource comes from football for almost every sport that they have.”
Opponents of the legislation include the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus, which argue the bill rolls back athletes’ rights and shifts control entirely to the NCAA. Supporters of the bill include all 32 major collegiate athletic conferences, more than 380 colleges and universities, as well as major league baseball, football, basketball and hockey.
Grassley says the bill should help to level the playing field for Iowa’s smaller institutions.
“If the universities are going to dominate this, say the four big conferences, and then there’s some minor conferences that still might be able to compete,” Grassley says, “but it would just ruin all sports programs for most schools.”
Grassley says the situation may not necessarily ruin things for UNI but it would generally make it tough for all schools that aren’t in the big four conferences.
The bill faces an uncertain future in the U.S. House, which is in recess until after the November elections, though Grassley says he’s optimistic.
“I believe it would pass the House, at least I hope so,” Grassley says, “because getting major legislation like this through the Senate with a 60-vote requirement and very bipartisan — I think at one time we had 75 people vote for at least bringing the bill up.”
President Trump is among the bill’s backers, posting on social media that it will “not only save college sports, it will save the colleges themselves.”
