Cantwell, Baumgartner team up to oppose legislative ‘power grab’ for college sports’ richest conferences

WASHINGTON – Legislation that would empower the NCAA to set compensation rules for college athletes cleared a key subcommittee on Tuesday, but not before two Washington state lawmakers teamed up in bipartisan opposition to the bill.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat, and Rep. Michael Baumgartner, a Spokane Republican, sent a letter to the leaders of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade on Monday, urging them to postpone the vote that took place as scheduled the next morning. The Washington lawmakers, who once squared off in the 2012 Senate race, wrote that the bill would allow “the richest conferences to cement into place the current power structure in college athletics that would leave only the wealthiest schools able to compete at the highest levels.”

“The SCORE Act will only cause more chaos and damage to the college athletics system,” they wrote, asking the subcommittee’s GOP chairman and top Democrat to postpone the vote “until the defects are fixed.”

When the panel met Tuesday morning, its members advanced the bill in a 12-11 vote along party lines. Rep. Russ Fulcher, who represents North Idaho, and Rep. Cliff Bentz of eastern Oregon were among the Republicans voting in favor. Rep. Kim Schrier, whose district stretches from Wenatchee to the Seattle suburbs, and her fellow Democrats voted no.

The SCORE Act – short for Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements – was introduced last week by seven Republicans and two Democrats, with the endorsement of the NCAA and all of the “Power Five” conferences. That group of the biggest conferences in Division I football said in a joint statement, “This bill represents a very encouraging step toward delivering the national clarity and accountability that college athletics desperately needs.”

The bill would essentially codify the terms of a settlement approved by a judge in June that resolved multiple antitrust lawsuits related to student athletes’ compensation. Those lawsuits emerged after the Supreme Court in 2021 ruled that the NCAA’s previous prohibition on collegiate athletes being paid violated federal antitrust law.

“If you thought the dissolution of the Pac-12 was a heist, the SCORE Act is the National Championship of all heists,” Cantwell said in a statement accompanying the letter. “This legislation is a power grab by the two biggest conferences that will leave athletes, coaches, and small and midsized institutions behind.”

The legislation would give the NCAA an antitrust exemption, allowing the powerful nonprofit to regulate how schools compensate the athletes who fuel the lucrative world of college sports. It would set national standards for their pay .

As Baumgartner and Cantwell see it, the bill would benefit the biggest conferences and schools at the expense of smaller ones.

“The bill entrenches the NCAA’s authority at a time when the NCAA’s governance structure is becoming increasingly dominated by wealthier conferences,” they wrote. “The SCORE Act hands the NCAA unfettered ability to set rules that would make the rich schools richer, like representation on NCAA championship selection committees – and the tournament revenue that comes with it.”

The Washington lawmakers objected to the bill’s formula for determining how much revenue is shared with athletes, saying it would make it harder for small and midsize schools to compete with bigger ones. They also warned that it would lead to less money for women’s sports and prompt a “college football arms race” that pushes schools to cut other sports.

Drawing on the recent realignment that saw the University of Washington and other schools leave the Pac-12 to join more lucrative conferences based in the eastern half of the country, Cantwell and Baumgartner said the bill fails to address “the absurdity of sending college athletes coast-to-coast on a weekly basis while foreclosing any opportunity for athletes to have a voice at the table to advocate for themselves as these changes continue to play out.”

In April, Baumgartner introduced his own legislation that envisions a wholesale remaking of the U.S. college sports landscape, dissolving the NCAA and requiring conferences to include only schools in a single time zone.

Cantwell is the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which has jurisdiction over the issue of so-called NIL payments – short for “name, image and likeness” – that have upended collegiate athletics since the Supreme Court ruling in 2021.

Baumgartner is not a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee – which was led by his predecessor, former Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, until her retirement at the end of 2024 – but he has made reforming college sports a top priority of his first term in the House. The freshman lawmaker sits on two other panels with jurisdiction over college athletics, the Judiciary Committee and the Education and Workforce Committee.

In a statement accompanying the letter, Baumgartner said the SCORE Act, in its current form, “fails to protect what makes college sports special.”

“It puts student-athletes at risk by empowering the wealthiest programs to poach talent and control the system,” he said. “This bill accelerates the erosion of competitive balance, tradition, and opportunity – especially for smaller schools. I want to make sure that college athletics at WSU, Gonzaga, and EWU continue to have a strong future. If we truly care about student-athletes, we should be strengthening the institutions and values that support them, not stacking the deck against them.”

The full Energy and Commerce Committee will have an opportunity to revise the bill through an amendment process before a vote to advance it to the House floor, where it would need the support of a majority of lawmakers to pass.

In the Senate, the filibuster rule would require a 60-vote supermajority and would first need to get through Cantwell’s committee, making passage in the upper chamber appear more difficult.