Katie Britt wants to save Friday night lights from college football’s new NFL-style TV deal

—

September 1, 2026

Katie Britt NCAA — (U.S. Senator Katie Britt, YHN)

U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-Montgomery) wants to protect high school football, and the community it creates for Alabamians, on Friday nights from a potential media grab from college football.

The Protect College Sports Act (PCSA), which is currently making its way through Congress, has a provision that says schools can join a voluntary collective to pool and jointly negotiate their media rights.

Britt wants to ensure this doesn’t affect the high school football schedule.

Alabama’s soon-to-be-senior U.S. Senator, who is a huge fan of the game, discussed the bill recently on Alabama Public Television’s “Capitol Journal.”

“I want to make sure that we protect Friday night lights,” Britt said.

“There is some conversation about the media pooling rights, and right now, currently, we see college on Thursday or on Saturday. Then you see NFL on Sunday and Monday. We need to make sure it’s very clear that we’re protecting Friday for our communities and for our hometowns, so that people can rally around the next generation and have that time together, and I think we’ll hopefully see some clarity in that as well.”

The provision creates a targeted antitrust exemption letting schools and conferences pool and jointly sell their media rights — the same protection the NFL, NBA and NHL already have under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961.

That law only legally shields Friday nights from the NFL, not college football, whose Friday deference to high school ball has always been voluntary and already under strain — which is why a separate section of the bill revisiting college-versus-high-school scheduling limits is the one Britt’s really watching.

Senator Britt also wants to make sure there are some real guardrails in place for the NCAA when it comes to the issue of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rights.

“Well, first off, the only reason we’re in this position, in my personal opinion, is the NCAA has failed to do its job,” she argued. “And so I think that while there certainly needed to be adjustments, and young athletes needed to have the opportunity to to truly be able to utilize their name, image, and likeness as another student would, we do know then that the pendulum swung just too much the other direction. So there, there definitely needs to be something done in the current bill.”

U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) has spoken out against the PCSA, instead pushing his more narrow bill, which regulates only eligibility and transfers.

“So there’s a lot of things that I think are you know can be positive steps in the right direction,” Britt said about the PCSA. “There are other things that I hope still that we are able to work on.”

“If we have to get involved, and I would prefer that we not have to be the ones getting involved, I’d prefer them to just do their job, but if we do have to get involved, we want to make sure we don’t have unintended consequences, and we’re thoughtful,” she added.

“So I do think you’ll see us talking a lot about this when we get back. I think you’ll see Senator Cruz and Senator Cantwell work.”

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee