Amateur Athletes Protection and Compensation Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN. Madam President, I am on the floor this afternoon to discuss the issue of student athletes having greater control over their name, image, and likeness.

Over the years, intercollegiate athletics have become a staple in American culture and higher education. No other country in the world has a sports college model that compares to ours, which affords thousands of young adults each year the opportunity to leverage their athletic ability into a quality education and continue playing the sport they love. But over the years, college athletics have grown into an increasingly profitable, billion-dollar industry, and the rules surrounding athlete compensation have not kept pace.

Now, individual States have created laws that will guarantee an amateur athlete the ability to profit off their name, image, and likeness without fear of being reprimanded. Again, I highlight that individual States have made those decisions and are creating laws. Nineteen States have now passed NIL legislation, and of those 19, 6 will go into effect in less a month--July 1, just, really, a few days away.

As more and more States continue to pass their own legislation, we are quickly headed for a system of inconsistent State laws that will be cumbersome and in some cases unworkable for athletes and the schools to navigate. Intercollegiate athletics are an inherently interstate matter. Our model makes certain the best teams and the best athletes compete against one another no matter their geographic location. This requires a single Federal standard that all schools and all athletes can operate under.

College sports and the opportunities they provide student athletes will be dramatically harmed if we are unable to pass a Federal standard. Each year, we will have States introducing or updating their NIL laws in order to gain just a bit more of an advantage in attracting athletes to their institutions.

We have already seen this begin to play out. Following California's passage of the first State NIL law in September 2019, there has been a rush of action by 18 other States to quickly follow suit, hoping to remain competitive as athletic departments recruit athletes to their States' schools. The floodgates will fully open on July 1--only 16 days away--when State NIL laws begin to take effect.

The time to act is now. There is a compromise to be found to both empowering amateur athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness and guaranteeing greater protections, while at the same time maintaining the integrity of our one-of-a-kind collegiate model that has provided millions of people the opportunity to get a quality education. We can accomplish both of these goals and provide college athletics with the certainty that it needs.

In February, I introduced the Amateur Athletes Protection and Compensation Act--my proposal to accomplish this necessary balance. My legislation would create a single set of guidelines that would enable amateur athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness by prohibiting conferences, schools, and athletic associations, like the NCAA, from rendering an amateur intercollegiate athlete ineligible on the basis of receiving that NIL compensation. It would also codify serious athlete protections like extended healthcare coverage for athletic injuries or illness and scholarship guarantees.

I understand this legislation is not perfect in everyone's eyes. It is not perfect in its current form, but it offers not only the quickest but the best path towards enacting meaningful Federal legislation on issues of amateur athletic name, image, and likeness.

When I say it may not be perfect, there are certainly things that we can negotiate to improve, and it is not the extreme on either side of this issue, but it is something that a broad set of Senators, Members of the House, and a President could come behind and certainly is perhaps the only piece of legislation that has a chance of being enacted anytime soon. I recognize there are many ideas on what should and should not be included in an NIL bill, and I welcome those conversations with my colleagues.

I strongly encourage the U.S. Senate, the Commerce Committee, and my colleagues on that committee to act quickly on this urgent matter and join us in this legislation to make progress on this important issue. The time is short, but if we work together, we can accomplish a goal that is needed in this country and accomplish it by the time that it is needed to occur.

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