NEWS: USA Senators Introduce SAFE Act Aimed at NIL & College Athletics Reform

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Written by Kevin Fischer, edits & additional commentary via Garrett Zatlin

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Last Monday, on September 29th, United States senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced the Student Athlete Fairness and Enforcement (SAFE Act).

Senator Cantwell wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that the newly proposed bill would, "create first-ever federal student athlete rights & protections, level the competitive playing field for all schools, support women's & Olympic sports, and allow schools to pool media rights to maximize revenue."

The SAFE Act would rewrite the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. Doing so would allow the pooling of media rights, with the stated goal of "maximiz[ing] revenue for all schools and conferences." Currently, conferences sell media rights separately, with major conferences receiving the most lucrative deals.

The bill would also require universities to allot the same number of scholarships to women's sports and non-revenue generating sports as they did during the 2023-24 academic year.

Among the provisions would be a reworking of the NCAA's transfer portal as well as name, image, and likeness (NIL) collectives. Under this bill, student athletes would be able to transfer up to twice without sitting out of competition for a year. The bill would also prohibit NIL endorsements that are not for a, "valid business purpose," similar to the language used by the newly created College Sports Commision (CSC).

The SAFE Act was presented as an alternative to the SCORE Act, which is still pending a vote in the House of Representatives. Senators Cantwell, Booker and Blumenthal have been vocal opponents of that bill.

A coalition of 10 Division One conferences, which had previously been critical of the SCORE Act, wrote a joint letter voicing their support after the language in the bill was reworked. The Athletic's Ralph D. Russo notes that, with this development, every conference in Division One appears to back the previously reported on SCORE Act.

Even so, momentum for the SCORE Act in the House of Representative has stalled, and the SAFE Act provides an alternative that Cantwell says would give all schools, "a fair shake". However, much like the SCORE Act, Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports reports that there will be challenges for the passage of the bill, given that it has yet to receive bipartisan support.