The future of college sports should not be decided by Congress: Sen Rand Paul

College sports are woven into the fabric of American culture.

We create our fall calendars during Saturday kick-off, and in March we all fill out our brackets. We line up in parking lots – rain or shine, hot or cold.

We invite our neighbors to watch the game at our house, then we fire up the grill while all the kids run around the yard – and, yes, we start our kids early, dressing them in baby clothes emblazoned with the logo of our alma mater or home team.

College sports can be anything from a conversation starter to the foundation of our most meaningful relationships in life. We celebrate with our family when our team wins and we wish we could celebrate with those we missed.

And while Kentuckians stand proudly shoulder to shoulder, there are a few days each year when we make sure everyone knows we wear Cardinal red or Wildcat blue.

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These are our traditions. Our community, our region, our society, and our country.

Yes, there are rapid changes happening in college sports.

Many decisions in all our courts, including the Supreme Court, have struck down the old rules under college sports, and there isn’t much left that holds them together today.

Players move schools every year in search of the highest bidder, while institutions feel powerless to stop the rapid change and demand for more money. The academic side of college sports feels like it’s becoming an afterthought.

The pressure to find a cure is mounting.

But I don’t want Congress to say what comes next.

Why would we give a center so famous as cockroaches and traffic jams to the defense of college sports?

Former University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban speaks as Sen. Ted Cruz speaks during a meeting on the future of college athletics and the need to consolidate the name, image and rights of student athletes on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 12, 2024. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Many bills have been introduced in Congress to rebuild college sports for this new era, defining how athletes can and cannot participate in sports, how they can be compensated, and how universities can and cannot manage their sports programs.

But is anyone in the American public happy about the latest reform passed by Congress? Anything else?

Congress can’t keep federal agencies funded, and government employees miss out on pay. Congress has allowed airport security screening lines to crawl for weeks. Congress can’t pass a budget, and it seems like the government is shutting down all the time.

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And now, the American people are expected to believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that Congress can successfully regulate college sports?

College sports should never be under an executive council of 535 members of Congress, nor should they be controlled from Washington, DC, like the Postal Service.

College sports should have the ability to embrace their own changes, and the role of Congress should be to give them that power—and that’s all.

Whether we like it or not, college sports are a market, and should not be subject to restrictive federal regulations or the open threat of congressional intervention.

That’s why I proposed the College Sports Integrity Act (S. 2147), which works on a simple premise: Eliminate the dishonesty liability of college athletics.

This solution will enable the people who built, grew, and maintain college sports to decide what’s next.

When there are conflicts that arise, the participants should sit down and agree, and resolve them internally.

In the context of a series of court-imposed rules, empower institutions, athletes, and conferences to figure out how to balance the demands of this new situation while preserving the traditional role of college sports and academics.

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Once agreed upon, everyone signs and agrees to play by those rules.

Who better to protect the integrity of college sports than those who create college sports and who will have to work, live, and compete within the new rules?

Questions of revenue sharing, television contracts, institutional alignment, player transfers, and more should be handled by those involved in college sports, not by terms set by Congress.

We cannot allow Congress to impose a regulatory regime that picks winners and losers; improve the governance of government institutions; lays down in federal law what can be dealt with in basic contracts; it will probably not be possible to change in the future; and cannot be separated from politics and parochial interests.

Charlie Baker, president of the NCAA, arrives for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “Name, Image, Likeness, and the Future of College Sports” at the Hart Building on Oct. 17, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images)

Additionally, since Congress often legislates by cobbling together hundreds of unrelated measures behind closed doors—and then uses imminent deadlines and expirations to gain power over the members—and the file—it’s unlikely that any “framework” for college sports created by Congress will receive sufficient debate and scrutiny before becoming law.

In other words, accepting the idea that Congress will create and regulate college sports rules means placing blind faith in an implicit process within an unpopular or untrusted institution.

To paraphrase former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: We’re going to have to pass this bill to find out what’s in it.

I never want to put college sports and our beloved culture in that kind of danger.

But the good news is that you don’t have to.

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If we pass the Collegiate Sports Integrity Act and send it to President Donald Trump, we can put college sports on a sustainable path into the future, and we can prevent politicians from derailing it.

Sounds like a winning strategy to me.