Maria Cantwell, WA
Linked statement
“I want the Senate to move forward on this college sports bill. We updated it to protect student athletes' health, safety, and schoolwork. The bill also lets schools stream smaller sports to raise money, and it keeps college sports from draining money away from regular students.”
“Mr. President, I come to the floor because we are going to be voting shortly on two things this afternoon: one on a judicial nominee and, second, on cloture on the underlying substitute of the Protect College Sports Act. I just wanted to make sure that we were talking to colleagues about changes that were in that underlying substitute that we have been able to make. I think earlier today, at 3 or 3:30, was the deadline for filing amendments. So we obviously have been working all weekend and processing amendments that were filed last week, and now we will work on amendments that are filed this week and, hopefully, make progress with our colleagues on a bipartisan basis. But as we continue to move through the legislative process on the Protect College Sports Act, we have sought to clarify and improve the bill in ways that make clear to our colleagues the intent of what the Senate Commerce Committee and now those here on the Senate floor have tried to achieve in this legislation. The substitute makes clear that medical coverage and healthcare and safety standards in the bill are a floor and not a ceiling. So it amends sections 106 and 107 to clarify that it cannot be construed to preclude provisions of additional medical coverage or establishment of additional health, wellness, and safety standards in the bill. It requires that the NCAA take more responsibility in school compliance with health, safety, and wellness standards; and I appreciate this very much because I think these actions do need to have someone who can continue to improve the accountability of our academic institutions and how they are performing or not performing. It requires a Commission that we put into the legislation to also study further health, wellness, and safety standards and consider ways to improve them. It is making progress in a couple of other areas: the academic progress requirement, which I think is really important. This bill is to make sure that we still have student-athletes and they meet and achieve academic performance. So this requires an institution to comply with the uniform benchmarks established by the Intercollegiate Athletic Association or conference related to graduation rates and the academic process of student-athletes in order to be eligible for this retention fund. So we are putting in more safeguards and accountability. If these institutions want to continue to have additional resources, they are going to have to prove that they are meeting academic performance. It prevents the NCAA from weakening its standards for qualifying as a full-time student by cross-referencing terms and definitions. So, again, there are lots of eyeballs on this legislation, and it is good because we are making and perfecting and ensuring that the language does what we think it does; and, if not, we are improving it by making changes. The substitute also includes a role for the House and Senate Education and Labor Committees in the selection of Commission members. It does this by requiring the House and Senate leadership and the Senate Commerce and House Energy and Commerce leadership to work with the Senate HELP and House Ed and Workforce leadership in appointing the members of the Commission. Now, this legislation does try to stabilize the college environment today as it relates to sports, but it also says we need to have a big discussion about how this continues to play out in the future. And this Commission needs to be well represented by a variety of interests. So we are very happy to add both HELP and House Education and Workforce leadership to be part of that. And it requires the Commission to study how and whether students should get a financial stake in their own teams. Now, this is a novel idea but something I think the Commission should consider. One of the things I am very proud of in the underlying bill is the fact that we say to broadcast entities who bid on college sports--most of the time just to show football or just to show basketball--that if you are not using your rights for those same institutions to help support other programs--like, say women’s volleyball or track and field--that you have to allow that institution to come up with other ways that they might enhance their revenue by doing streaming media. Now, we think this is really important because we think there are a lot of great--I am very proud of, right now, that, I think, our UW women’s pole vaulter is No. 1 in the world right now. I think I just saw that headline. But why can’t the University of Washington promote their track and field if, in fact, their football Huskies contract, which--I would just say, I saw a lot of Big Ten football this weekend, trying to engage and understand, but you didn’t see anything about the Huskies other than if you tried to watch that game. Why? Because nobody on the east coast even reports about what happens to west coast football. After a certain time, they just don’t report about it. This bill is about trying to empower these other sports--particularly that drive women and Olympic sports--to make their own revenue streams. So one of our colleagues here wanted an improvement to the bill that said that students should even think about how to get a bigger financial stake. I welcome it. I welcome that as part of a Commission requirement. We also did a few things to make sure that we are covering pending cases, that the underlying bill does not wipe out pending cases. And so we took language recommended by a variety of our athletes working on this prior to us even moving the bill out of committee, since the bill moved out of committee, and this, I think, helped us perfect this language to make sure that existing pending cases are not wiped out by our legislation. And it obviously also narrows the broad field of preemption provisions for eligibility to just those covered in this legislative section. So this legislation before us today continues to make improvements. As I said, I think there are about 15 or 20 amendments that were filed last week and maybe another 20-plus amendments filed today. So we are going to continue to work through our colleagues on that but continue to push forward on the very challenging environment that college education is facing and the huge amounts of add-on fees that they are adding to nonstudent-athletes to pay for athletics, taking money out of a general fund to pay for athletics--basically, taking out an endowment to pay for athletics. The majority of these are not even making money anymore for themselves. So we have to bring some order to the system, and I urge my colleagues to continue to improve the situation so that we are not balancing the books on behalf of larger education just for sports but that they have a system that will work for all of us. So I encourage my colleagues to continue the dialogue with us, and I hope that we can move forward on this important legislation. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.”
Mr. President, I come to the floor because we are going to be voting shortly on two things this afternoon: one on a judicial nominee and, second, on cloture on the underlying substitute of the Protect College Sports Act. I just wanted to make sure that we were talking to colleagues about changes that were in that underlying substitute that we have been able to make. I think earlier today, at 3 or 3:30, was the deadline for filing amendments. So we obviously have been working all weekend and processing amendments that were filed last week, and now we will work on amendments that are filed this week and, hopefully, make progress with our colleagues on a bipartisan basis. But as we continue to move through the legislative process on the Protect College Sports Act, we have sought to clarify and improve the bill in ways that make clear to our colleagues the intent of what the Senate Commerce Committee and now those here on the Senate floor have tried to achieve in this legislation. The substitute makes clear that medical coverage and healthcare and safety standards in the bill are a floor and not a ceiling. So it amends sections 106 and 107 to clarify that it cannot be construed to preclude provisions of additional medical coverage or establishment of additional health, wellness, and safety standards in the bill. It requires that the NCAA take more responsibility in school compliance with health, safety, and wellness standards; and I appreciate this very much because I think these actions do need to have someone who can continue to improve the accountability of our academic institutions and how they are performing or not performing. It requires a Commission that we put into the legislation to also study further health, wellness, and safety standards and consider ways to improve them. It is making progress in a couple of other areas: the academic progress requirement, which I think is really important. This bill is to make sure that we still have student-athletes and they meet and achieve academic performance. So this requires an institution to comply with the uniform benchmarks established by the Intercollegiate Athletic Association or conference related to graduation rates and the academic process of student-athletes in order to be eligible for this retention fund. So we are putting in more safeguards and accountability. If these institutions want to continue to have additional resources, they are going to have to prove that they are meeting academic performance. It prevents the NCAA from weakening its standards for qualifying as a full-time student by cross-referencing terms and definitions. So, again, there are lots of eyeballs on this legislation, and it is good because we are making and perfecting and ensuring that the language does what we think it does; and, if not, we are improving it by making changes. The substitute also includes a role for the House and Senate Education and Labor Committees in the selection of Commission members. It does this by requiring the House and Senate leadership and the Senate Commerce and House Energy and Commerce leadership to work with the Senate HELP and House Ed and Workforce leadership in appointing the members of the Commission. Now, this legislation does try to stabilize the college environment today as it relates to sports, but it also says we need to have a big discussion about how this continues to play out in the future. And this Commission needs to be well represented by a variety of interests. So we are very happy to add both HELP and House Education and Workforce leadership to be part of that. And it requires the Commission to study how and whether students should get a financial stake in their own teams. Now, this is a novel idea but something I think the Commission should consider. One of the things I am very proud of in the underlying bill is the fact that we say to broadcast entities who bid on college sports--most of the time just to show football or just to show basketball--that if you are not using your rights for those same institutions to help support other programs--like, say women’s volleyball or track and field--that you have to allow that institution to come up with other ways that they might enhance their revenue by doing streaming media. Now, we think this is really important because we think there are a lot of great--I am very proud of, right now, that, I think, our UW women’s pole vaulter is No. 1 in the world right now. I think I just saw that headline. But why can’t the University of Washington promote their track and field if, in fact, their football Huskies contract, which--I would just say, I saw a lot of Big Ten football this weekend, trying to engage and understand, but you didn’t see anything about the Huskies other than if you tried to watch that game. Why? Because nobody on the east coast even reports about what happens to west coast football. After a certain time, they just don’t report about it. This bill is about trying to empower these other sports--particularly that drive women and Olympic sports--to make their own revenue streams. So one of our colleagues here wanted an improvement to the bill that said that students should even think about how to get a bigger financial stake. I welcome it. I welcome that as part of a Commission requirement. We also did a few things to make sure that we are covering pending cases, that the underlying bill does not wipe out pending cases. And so we took language recommended by a variety of our athletes working on this prior to us even moving the bill out of committee, since the bill moved out of committee, and this, I think, helped us perfect this language to make sure that existing pending cases are not wiped out by our legislation. And it obviously also narrows the broad field of preemption provisions for eligibility to just those covered in this legislative section. So this legislation before us today continues to make improvements. As I said, I think there are about 15 or 20 amendments that were filed last week and maybe another 20-plus amendments filed today. So we are going to continue to work through our colleagues on that but continue to push forward on the very challenging environment that college education is facing and the huge amounts of add-on fees that they are adding to nonstudent-athletes to pay for athletics, taking money out of a general fund to pay for athletics--basically, taking out an endowment to pay for athletics. The majority of these are not even making money anymore for themselves. So we have to bring some order to the system, and I urge my colleagues to continue to improve the situation so that we are not balancing the books on behalf of larger education just for sports but that they have a system that will work for all of us. So I encourage my colleagues to continue the dialogue with us, and I hope that we can move forward on this important legislation. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.