It has been an insane week in college sports. 

The SEC is talking about breaking away again, the Big 12 wants to play ten conference games, and now everybody has big feelings about the new bipartisan Protect College Sports Act introduced in the Senate. 

And, honestly, I get it. There are major changes proposed in this bill, some of which would greatly benefit the Big 12 and ACC, though one change could really backfire. 

It’s also not likely to make it to law in its current form, and there could be legal challenges even if it does.

Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger has a great breakdown, and if you’re a total sicko, you can read the entire bill here. 

Here are the key things the bill would do: 

• Prevent the creation of a Super League. The SEC and Big Ten wouldn’t be allowed to expand or merge. 

• Give conferences the option to pool their broadcast rights and sell them together, which could create far more revenue for everyone involved.

• Create a harder revenue-sharing cap. The College Sports Commission would have real authority to make sure any NIL deal above the revenue-sharing cap is at fair market value for real business purposes. That would help curb skyrocketing roster prices.

• Create a one-time transfer rule. All student-athletes would get one free transfer during a five-year eligibility window, unless their coach leaves or they are grad transfers. A second transfer would require sitting out for a season.

• Limit agent fees at 5% and create a registry of all agents. This would help reduce the number of bad actor agents taking advantage of student-athletes. 

• Ban coaches from leaving for another job mid-season. This is being called the “Lane Kiffin rule.” 

Predictably, the SEC and Big Ten do not like this. They are most opposed to the idea of pooling media rights with the other conferences. 

Most projections show that all schools would make considerably more money by doing so, which would help keep schools from having to cut Olympic and women’s sports to keep up with skyrocketing football and men’s basketball roster costs. 

But while SEC and Big Ten schools would make more money overall, it would increase the payouts for leagues like the Big 12 and ACC enough to shrink the gap between the Power Two and everyone else. They would be relinquishing power. Unless…

And that’s probably a realistic view of where this is heading. The Power Two may bully their way into taking a bigger slice of the pie yet again. 

Publicly, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey isn’t complaining about the Super League and expansion limitations. The same can’t be said for Big Ten and SEC fans. 

Whether Big Ten and SEC fans want to admit it or not, this part of the bill is aimed at saving them from themselves. Breaking off and forming a Super League would be killing the golden goose. 

After cutting out that much of the college football world, there would be diminishing returns as big brands inevitably lose more games and lose some of their shine, which means less casual viewership interest over time.

The big boys would be stuck in a world where they cut out too many hardcore fans and couldn’t maintain enough casual fan interest to keep the TV money rolling in at the same clip. And by then it would be too late to put the toothpaste back in the tube. 

The Big Ten and SEC need the rest of college football, whether they care to admit it or not. 

I would imagine the one-time transfer rule, agent compensation cap, and Lane Kiffin rule would have close to universal support from the conferences. 

And while a hard revenue-sharing cap would definitely save schools from spending themselves into oblivion over time, I think that is one part of this bill that should give some Big 12 schools pause.

If everybody is suddenly playing within relatively the same financial constraints when putting together a roster, it becomes impossible to spend your way into another tier of the sport like Texas Tech has been doing.

It would take us back to a world where the main recruiting advantages are coaching, relationships, tradition, and facilities. That may not be the best thing for a Texas- and Oklahoma-less Big 12, at least in the short term.

I think it’s healthy for the league to have a dominant program or two that can capture national media attention every year, and a hard cap makes that tougher to pull off.

Interestingly, Tech megabooster Cody Campbell worked on this bill and has been publicly supporting it. 

Ultimately, there is virtually zero chance that this bill makes it into law in its current form. The SEC and Big Ten aren’t going to take it lying down, and neither will lawmakers. 

We’re already seeing pushback to it from one senator. 

Many also believe there would be plenty of legal challenges even if it did become law. 

The bottom line to me is this: There continues to be more movement toward a more stable structure for the future of college sports. More has happened in the last six months than happened in the previous four years.

I’m going to remain optimistic that eventually, this will sort itself out in a way that removes the existential dread hanging over every college sports season for non-SEC and Big Ten programs.

What You Need to Know

• The Senate bill might also force old rivalries to come back, including multiple rivalries involving Big 12 teams. 

• Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark says the league may play ten conference games if the College Football Playoff expands to 24 teams. 

• Texas Tech billionaire booster Cody Campbell took a shot at SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey on Twitter. 

• The SEC discussed breaking away and only playing and governing themselves again this week. 

• In a brutal break for Iowa State, star forward Milan Momcilovic is withdrawing from the NBA draft and returning to college. Here is an early list of suitors. 

• SEC administrators slammed BYU and Texas Tech behind closed doors in a meeting with College Football Playoff officials.

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