President Donald Trump cheered Senate passage of the Protect College Sports Act late Monday, writing on Truth Social that it "will not only save college sports, it will save the colleges themselves."
The act would set national rules for athletes' name, image and likeness payments and transfers between schools. Though the bill passed in the U.S. Senate 77-22 — Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, did not vote — it is not expected to become law before the Nov. 3 midterms because the House is away from regular legislative business until after the election.
The House is not scheduled to return for regular legislative business until Nov. 9. Speaker Mike Johnson called it likely a lame-duck item; a House source told CNBC an early return to pass the bill is "highly unlikely." A House counterpart, the SCORE Act, had previously been pulled twice by GOP leaders for lack of votes.
In his post, Trump got the bill's name slightly wrong. He called it the “Protect College Sport” act; the formal title uses "Sports," not "Sport."
A statement from the Senate Commerce Committee says the bill would create national NIL rules, cap agent fees, guarantee scholarships for 10 years after eligibility ends and add temporary protections for women's and Olympic sports.
The NCAA and major conferences support it; the National College Players Association, the NAACP, the AFL-CIO and the Congressional Black Caucus oppose it. Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, said the bill served “the large, wealthy interests that have been controlling college sports for a long time.” Booker is himself a former college football player.
Trump has pitched “saving” college sports before. In July 2025, he announced an executive order titled Saving College Sports that the White House has said was intended to “protect student-athletes and collegiate athletic scholarships and opportunities.” In March, he hosted a college sports roundtable at the White House: “We have to save college sports and save, I believe, colleges,” he said. On Sept. 17, he warned college sports "will lead to bankruptcies and disaster for many Colleges."
On June 4, he wrote on social media that “College Sports, a Great American Institution that produces our many Athletes, Leaders, and Olympic Dominance, is a total ‘mess,’ and everyone is saying that it must be fixed.” He added that the best solution would be “a final Bipartisan Law, that I can sign this summer.”
Outside of sports, Trump has cast universities and academia as ideological opponents, and has threatened and attempted to withdraw federal funds from top schools. On April 16, 2025, just days after the federal government froze over $2 billion in funding and grants to Harvard, Trump wrote that Harvard had "lost its way,” saying it was “hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students.” A federal judge, Allison Burroughs, ruled on Sept. 3, 2025, that the Harvard freeze violated the First Amendment.
Columbia University agreed in July 2025 to pay $200 million, plus $21 million to settle employment claims, to get most of its grants back.
In Nov. 2023, Trump pledged to raise money "by taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments."