Alabama and Auburn don’t agree on much – but they issued a rare joint statement today speaking out against major legislation pending in the U.S. Senate related to college athletics.
The Protect College Sports Act is headed to the Senate floor after passing the Senate Commerce Committee 19-9 last month.
U.S. Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) drew up the bipartisan bill as a way to try to get a handle on the ongoing chaos in college sports.
Both the power programs in Alabama say the bill would do the opposite.
“The bill is presented as a way to ‘stabilize’ college athletics, but it would do the opposite by perpetuating the very instability it claims to cure through provisions that would undermine implementation and enforcement of the rules established under the House settlement, including by narrowing the disclosure and enforcement tools needed to hold every program to the same standards,” the statement reads.
It also goes on to argue several other points that would be negative drawbacks from the bill.
“[The Protect College Sports Act would] allow for new litigation undercutting efforts to create uniformity and consistency in rulemaking and enforcement on the national level because of inadequate antitrust protection and preemption standards too narrow to displace the current patchwork of conflicting state laws, while simultaneously creating new forms of liability through expanded private rights of action.
“[The Protect College Sports Act would] establish an expansive federal program—reaching into roster decisions, game scheduling, and internal governance—to micromanage college athletics [and] advance private-equity interests, who stand to profit from a redistribution of media-rights revenue, by pressuring institutions to involuntarily pool media rights in a way that punishes success rather than rewarding it.”
The statement was signed by the presidents of both universities as well as the heads of each Boards of Trustees.
“Auburn University and The University of Alabama both appreciate Congress’s attention to these challenges and share the goals of creating opportunities for and protecting student-athletes, sustaining women’s and Olympic sports, and promoting fair competition through a single, clear national set of rules. But this bill does not meet that standard. In its current form, it solves little of what genuinely challenges college athletics and leaves the central questions to the courts, inviting the very litigation it claims to prevent.”
U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) has also spoken out against the bill.
Whether or not the Protect College Sports Act winds up passing in the Senate remains to be seen, but with both the biggest conferences in college football and now individual programs speaking out against it, the bill will continue to face an uphill climb.
Michael Brauner is a Senior Sports Analyst and Contributing Writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @MBraunerWNSP and hear him every weekday morning from 6 to 9 a.m. on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5, available free online.
