Cruz says, "We used to have a system that worked." The system “worked” for the institutions, the coaches collecting 8-figure contracts, the conferences, the networks, and the NCAA. It extracted enormous value from athletes while denying them compensation and meaningful mobility. Longing for the pre-NIL cartel model is not an argument for new federal limits on athlete rights. The Protect College Sports Act re-centers power with the same entities that spent decades suppressing the market and then spent years resisting the correction.

College sports are not in chaos. What Ted Cruz is calling chaos is the predictable and overdue market correction after the NCAA spent decades suppressing athlete compensation, restricting mobility, and operating as a cartel. The real instability came from the amateurism rules that courts continue to dismantle. Athletes finally have leverage. That's not chaos. Also, programs are not going broke. They choose to pay coaches 8-figure salaries, construct lavish facilities, and run an arms race while using accounting that treats scholarships and facilities as “expenses” and then cries poverty. The same departments that claim insolvency somehow find tens of millions for the next head coach and the next weight room. Fuzzy math does not make voluntary spending a crisis that requires federal intervention. Professional leagues have long treated college sports as a free minor-league system. The NFL and NBA in particular have avoided the full cost of player development. That does not create an obligation for Congress to now reimpose restraints on the athletes who generate the value. Finally, Congress did not create this mess. The NCAA did. Decades of anti-competitive rules, aggressive enforcement against athletes, and refusal to adapt produced the legal losses and the patchwork of state NIL laws. The current environment is the consequence of that failure, not of congressional inaction. The Protect College Sports Act is not a solution. It grants limited antitrust immunity to the same entities that caused the problems, imposes artificial limits on transfers that restrict athlete mobility, creates mechanisms that tilt leverage back toward schools, and preempts stronger state protections. Very little in the bill prioritizes the athletes who built the product. Passing it would not “fix” college sports. It would simply re-entrench the power structure that athletes have finally begun to challenge. Thanks for reading my op-ed.