LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- After decades of fighting compensation for college athletes, and years of courtroom losses, the NCAA and its most powerful conferences may be on the verge of winning something they’ve never had: federal law on their side.
Next week, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on the SCORE Act, short for Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements. Backed by college sports’ most powerful institutions and opposed by some advocates for athletes and smaller schools, the bill would codify into law what has already become reality in college athletics — and go a few steps further.
At its core, the SCORE Act writes into federal law the terms of the House v. NCAA antitrust settlement, which was recently approved by a federal court. That agreement allows schools to share up to $20 million annually with their athletes — a formal revenue-sharing model long considered off-limits under amateurism rules. It also preserves athletes' rights to sign NIL (name, image and likeness) deals, while tightening the rules on the nature of those deals and who can pay them.
But while the settlement was a negotiated truce, the SCORE Act would represent a permanent federal structure, enforced by the NCAA itself, with significant new protections for institutions, and fewer for athletes. It grants antitrust immunity to the NCAA and its members. It declares, in federal statute, that athletes may not be classified as employees, preempting ongoing lawsuits and labor board rulings. And it gives the NCAA the authority to adjust the revenue-sharing cap as it sees fit.
Critics, including Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), say the legislation could entrench inequities, accelerate spending at the top of the sport, and undermine protections for Olympic and women’s sports.
A law built on a settlement — with added power
The NCAA’s settlement in the House case — reached with attorneys for current and former athletes — was the most sweeping in college sports history. For the first time, schools were permitted to pay athletes directly. The settlement included a 22% revenue-sharing cap, set basic rules for NIL payments, and banned direct compensation from collectives or boosters unless they were legitimate business transactions. It also offered a clear, court-approved path forward that avoided further legal exposure for past restrictions on pay. Part of that was a structure to pay former athletes for NIL opportunities that had been denied.
The SCORE Act mirrors much of that structure. It allows the same kinds of payments and imposes similar guardrails. But unlike the court-approved agreement, which can be revisited or challenged over time, the SCORE Act would federalize the model — and remove future checks.
Where the House settlement sets a 22% cap, the SCORE Act gives the NCAA discretion to raise it. Where the settlement resolved existing litigation, the SCORE Act prevents future litigation, shielding the NCAA and its members from antitrust suits over athlete compensation rules. Where the settlement leaves room for debate over athlete status in the future, the SCORE Act forecloses it entirely, declaring that athletes may not be considered employees under federal or state law.
What would actually change?
If the SCORE Act passes, here’s how college sports could change — or be locked into place.
First, it would end the patchwork of NIL laws across the country. Dozens of states have passed or amended NIL laws in recent years, some giving schools broad authority to manage or even steer NIL activity. The SCORE Act would wipe the slate clean, preempting state laws entirely and establishing a single national standard.
Second, it would give the NCAA far more power than it currently has. The bill authorizes “interstate intercollegiate athletic associations” (read: the NCAA) to set enforcement rules, resolve disputes, register NIL agents, cap payments, penalize violators, and even control athlete transfers. It allows those groups to gather and publish data on athlete compensation — but also shields player contracts from public records laws, even at taxpayer-funded institutions.
Third, it would tilt the playing field further toward the biggest conferences. While the 22% revenue-sharing cap sounds like a limitation, Sen. Cantwell notes that the SCORE Act allows that cap to rise over time — with no oversight. She warns that it would intensify the current “football arms race,” with schools like Texas (projected to spend $35–40 million on football alone in 2025) pulling away from mid-majors and Olympic sport programs.
The bill does ban schools with $50 million or more in media rights revenue from using student fees to fund athletics — but that threshold is easily skirted. And it doesn’t apply to schools below that threshold, who make up the majority of Division I.
Most significantly, the SCORE Act blocks any future legal challenge to these rules, granting the NCAA a blanket exemption from federal and state antitrust laws — even though it was those very laws that allowed athletes to win the House and Alston cases in the first place.
A warning from the Senate
In an August 25 letter to more than 350 Division I university leaders, Sen. Cantwell — the ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee — argued that the bill was drafted by and for the NCAA and power conferences, without meaningful input from smaller schools or athletes themselves.
“This legislation will incentivize a Power 2 conference system,” she wrote, “and create inequities for other conferences and leave behind small to mid-sized schools.”
Cantwell points to the shifting media rights landscape, where the SEC and Big Ten are projected to receive ten times the College Football Playoff payouts of some Group of Five conferences. She also cites structural concerns. Already, the power conferences have gained a majority of seats on decision-making bodies, where in the past smaller schools were able to exercise a check on the most powerful schools and conferences.
She’s also concerned about what happens to the non-revenue-generating sports — especially those that feed into the U.S. Olympic pipeline. Schools, she warns, will face new pressure to keep up with direct athlete pay, even as they grapple with deficits.
“The robust competition that is the highlight of college sports… is key to Olympic medals,” Cantwell wrote. “The SCORE Act moves us in the wrong direction — and we do not want the United States to be embarrassed on the world stage.”
Where it stands now
The SCORE Act has passed through two House committees with bipartisan support and is expected to come up for a full vote soon. If passed, it would move to the Senate, where Cantwell and others have hinted at possible amendments or alternative legislation.
Supporters of the bill argue it brings clarity, fairness, and long-term stability to a chaotic college sports landscape — and protects the future of college sports as an educational, quasi-professional, model. Critics say it institutionalizes a new pay model without real protections for the athletes who make the system go.
Either way, the future of college athletics is no longer just being decided in the courts. It's now before Congress, with more debate to come.
Copyright 2025 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved. The preceding is an analysis written by Eric Crawford of WDRB. His story went through an editing process using ChatGPT, which included suggestions of subheadings and story breaks and other discussions of wording and flow.
