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🗞 What You Need to Know. Cantwell Rips B1G, SEC For Continued Opposition to Protect College Sports Act. Who Owns College Sports? CSMAS Recap.

📆 What’s Happening This Week. The Presidents Council Futures Subcommittee meets virtually on Tuesday, while the DIII Membership Committee gathers in Indianapolis on Wednesday and Thursday.

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“Moments after the passage of the newest college sports legislation through the Senate Commerce Committee here Thursday, Sen. Maria Cantwell removed her proverbial gloves.

She took big swings at the big boys: the commissioners of the SEC and Big Ten.

"People have to wake up," said Cantwell, a Washington state Democrat who's been in the Senate for 25 years. "The politics of these [conference] commissioners moving around deck chairs [with realignment] and making millions of dollars themselves and not thinking about the broad interest to solve these problems has led us to this point. It's time to listen to some other people.””

» Driving The News. “In an effort to align their schools in opposition to the Protect College Sports Act, Cantwell accused the conference commissioners of "intimidating" members by "threatening" team scheduling changes; suggested that league executives were treating university presidents and athletic directors as "puppets;" and believes that school board members who want their institutions to support the bill are now springing into action.”

» Court Awareness. “The disagreements rage onward over legislation that stands to regulate an industry while not holding the support of the two biggest industry stakeholders. It is an unusual circumstance, but one that the bill's authors believe doesn't matter in the end. While he'd like their support, Sen. Ted Cruz has told Yahoo Sports in the past that he believes the legislation can pass without the SEC and Big Ten's endorsement.”

» What They’re Saying. "Everybody wants a very legitimate process and wants everybody to adhere to it," Cantwell said. "What everybody is anxious about is somebody else going to be able to get around it and how are they going to get around it and how are they doing that? We are going to continue to have dialogue with these two divisions who think they control this debate," Cantwell deadpanned.”

“In late May, Sens. Ted Cruz — a Republican of Texas and chair of the Senate Commerce Comittee — and its ranking member, Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, announced the Protect College Sports Act of 2026 (PCSA), a piece of bipartisan legislation that represents the most significant federal intervention in collegiate athletics since Title IX. The bill would grant colleges, conferences, and athletic associations a limited antitrust exemption to enforce rules on compensation, transfers, eligibility, and agent oversight; extend the student-athlete revenue-sharing cap established under the House settlement; create a national name, image, and likeness standard; restrict in-season coaching transfers; bar large-revenue conference mergers; and allow voluntary pooling of conference media rights.

It is a serious and needed piece of legislation, and it will probably pass. But unfortunately, it does not address the most consequential governance question in collegiate athletics today.”

» Driving The News. “What the PCSA does not do is address the structural transformation happening below the surface: the systematic carving out of athletic departments’ commercial assets into private, profit-seeking entities whose accountability to boards, presidents, and institutions is, at best, ambiguous. The bill’s anticonsolidation guardrails would prevent the largest conferences from merging. That would prevent the formation of a Big Ten/Southeastern Conference super league. However, the bill would not stop a university from spinning its commercial athletic operations into an LLC and selling equity stakes or future revenue-participation rights to a private-equity firm.”

» Why It Matters. “The pattern running through these arrangements is what I call governance arbitrage. In finance, arbitrage is the practice of buying and selling assets in different markets to exploit market inefficiencies and make a profit. In these deals, we see the systematic migration of institutional assets and operations into structures where board oversight, presidential authority, and public accountability no longer fully apply.”

» The Final Word. “The Cruz-Cantwell bill deserves credit for what it accomplishes. It would restore NCAA enforcement authority, establish a national NIL standard, and close the structural gap the courts created. These are significant achievements that required genuine bipartisan work. But the bill cannot do what only boards can do: Conduct proper and thorough due diligence around athletics revenue and everything it represents for a university.”

“During its meeting this week, the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports approved the commissioning of a Cardiac Advisory Group.

The advisory group is charged with reviewing and making recommendations to update the 2016 NCAA Cardiac Care Best Practices document.

The Cardiac Care Best Practices support schools in evaluating their cardiac care plans and include information about the preparticipation evaluation of student-athletes and emergency action plans for cardiac arrest.”

» NCAA Injury Surveillance Program Substudy. “Committee members approved Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport as the inaugural topic for an NCAA Injury Surveillance Program substudy. The substudy will allow schools to contribute additional data, including enhanced clinical detail and injury context, to help examine questions like: Are student-athletes with indicators of REDs at higher risk of injury?”

» Concussion Safety Advisory Group. “The committee added stunt to the Concussion Safety Protocol Checklist as a contact/collision sport that requires medical personnel with training in the diagnosis, treatment and initial management of acute concussion to be present at all NCAA competitions and available during all NCAA practices.”

» Legislation. Time is running short to submit a legislative amendment for the 2027 NCAA Convention in Anaheim, Calif. The initial deadline for the submission of amendments sponsored by the membership is not later than 5 p.m. Eastern time, July 1. The submission should include the intent statement, rationale and impacted bylaws. [Note: At least one conference for a conference-sponsored amendment or at least 10 institutions for an institution-sponsored amendment must meet the July 1 deadline.] As a reminder, the minimum number of active member institutions required to fully sponsor an amendment not sponsored by the NCAA Division III Management Council or Presidents Council is 20.

» Baseball. Rowan shortstop Brayden Davis is transferring to East Carolina. The first-team D3baseball All-America selection hit .408 with 16 HR and 86 RBI in 44 games last season for the Profs with a 1.244 OPS.

» Tuition. Whitman College has announced the “Whitman 10% Promise” that guarantees that students will never pay more than 10% of their family’s income for tuition. “Understanding the cost of college should not take months or create additional stress, and we are committed to doing everything we can to make it simpler and easier for students and families to engage with financial aid from the first moment they encounter Whitman,” said Adam Miller, Vice President for Admission and Financial Aid.

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