College athletes could gain enforceable medical and scholarship protections while losing a route to challenge some restrictions on their earnings under the Protect College Sports Act.
The Senate passed the bill 77-22 on September 28. It awaits House action and is not law. Its supporters emphasize new rights to earn money from athletes' names and images, and to sue when specified protections are violated.
Daylight Post found that the right to sue comes with an explicit boundary: it does not override a separate shield against competition-law claims. The bill would protect schools, conferences and sports associations when they enforce or comply with specified rules, including compensation restrictions.
Enforcing a right and challenging a rule
Section 119 would let athletes sue over listed violations. Section 118 would shield defined conduct from federal and state antitrust law, which is designed to prevent unlawful restrictions on competition. Section 119 expressly preserves that shield.
The practical difference is between making a school follow the bill's protections and arguing that a protected pay restriction unlawfully limits competition. A new right to bring the first kind of case would not reopen the second.
The shield is specific, rather than immunity from every lawsuit. It covers compliance with listed provisions and certain sanctions, including rules on compensation, transfers and eligibility. A sports association would have to adopt implementing rules to qualify for the exemptions.
The compensation provisions include a limit on schools' shared-revenue payments, alongside exceptions such as a temporary fund to retain athletes. They do not impose one universal ceiling on every endorsement deal an athlete can obtain.
The protections are real, and so are their limits
The Senate Commerce Committee's account of the bill lists Division I coverage for out-of-pocket costs from athletic injuries or illness while athletes compete and for five years after eligibility ends. Scholarship protections would help athletes complete their degrees for up to ten years after eligibility. Agent fees on endorsement contracts would be capped at 5%.
Those guarantees address concrete risks: leaving college with an unfinished degree or a medical bill after generating income for a sports program. The committee also argues that national rules would help stabilize women's and Olympic sports.
For the bill's new civil claims, the text generally requires 30 days' written notice before filing. Where a violation can be corrected, a timely correction and written assurance against repetition would block that action. Claims involving physical injury, death or sexual abuse or misconduct are exempt from those notice-and-correction rules.
The bill separately says it is neutral on athletes' status as employees. It would not itself settle that dispute.
The House is considering a package that would create protections athletes can enforce while making specified earning restrictions harder to attack. The central choice concerns both the rights athletes receive and the power sports organizations retain over their pay.