Protect College Sports Act moves closer to final Senate vote - ESPN

WASHINGTON — A bill that proposes to fix some of the biggest problems in college sports — spiraling spending, constant lawsuits and a transfer portal run amok — cleared a major hurdle Tuesday when the Senate voted 74-24 to halt debate and move the measure one step closer to a final up-or-down vote.

The Protect College Sports Act, a bill co-sponsor Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called «a bipartisan solution designed to bring order to the chaos» easily cleared the 60-vote threshold it needed to stop the filibuster.

Co-sponsor Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said the lopsided nature of the vote left her «cautiously optimistic» it could get through the House, which has failed repeatedly in passing a different version of a college sports bill.

There remains, however, a persistent block of opposition.

«What this bill does at its core is to protect a system of exploitation,» said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

Notably, all four Black Democrats in the Senate — Cory Booker, Raphael Warnock, Lisa Blunt Rochester and Angela Alsobrooks — voted against the bill that is strongly opposed by the NAACP.

The vote came a week after college football's most recent crisis — a scheduled meeting of school presidents in the Southeastern Conference to expel LSU over its now-canceled plans to place players on the roster who had participated in NFL training camps.

Calmer heads prevailed. The eligibility lawsuit that triggered the mess is the sort of litigation the bill would outlaw.

«That was probably like a big lamp for some people who saw it and said, 'Oh my God, this is so out of control,'» Cantwell said in an interview with The Associated Press. «You can see how out-of-hand the situation was getting.»

Introduced in May, compromises finally got the bill to the