By Ralph D. Russo, Justin Williams and Chris Vannini
A flurry of activity in Washington D.C. in July suggested lawmakers would return from summer recess ready to move on a bill designed to potentially bring order to college sports, taking meaningful action after years of being lobbied by the NCAA, conferences and schools.
First, the SCORE (Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements) Act passed through committee in the House of Representatives, a milestone no sweeping college sports bill had reached before. Then, to further ramp up attention to the issue, President Donald Trump signed an executive order.
Most everyone involved with the SCORE Act agreed it still had hurdles to clear and was likely to hit a wall if it did get to the Senate. Still, there was optimism that bringing the bill to the floor for debate and a vote could happen sooner rather than later.
Now, the SCORE Act is in limbo.
There was speculation and anticipation last week that the bill could hit the floor this week. As of Monday, that’s no longer the case. Exactly what that means is unclear, but generally, legislation doesn’t go up for a vote until those who want it to pass know it has the votes to do so.
So what gives? Why has SCORE stalled, and what does that mean? The answer appears to be a blend of politics as usual and the exploitation of some familiar fault lines within college sports.
Opposition
The SCORE Act’s progress through Congress has mostly been driven by Republicans but has some bipartisan support, with six Democratic co-sponsors. It checks the three boxes that college sports leaders have been looking for in federal legislation:
A limited antitrust exemption to the NCAA and conferences — some protection from nonstop lawsuits.
The pre-emption of state laws that created a patchwork of rules and regulations, especially around the ways athletes can be compensated for their name, image and likeness.
The prevention of college athletes from being deemed employees.
With Republicans currently holding a six-seat advantage in the House, the bill would seem to have a solid chance to pass. Not so fast: Enter Cody Campbell, the billionaire businessman and Texas Tech booster who has emerged as a major figure in the debate over how to “save” college sports.
Campbell’s “Saving College Sports” TV commercials have received as much airtime during the first few weeks of this college football season as surrender-cobra fans in the stands.
Campbell says the SCORE Act gives too much power to the NCAA and doesn’t do enough to protect Olympic and women’s sports from being cut due to lack of funding. On the other hand, the NCAA reported Monday that a record number of more than 550,00 athletes on nearly 20,000 teams participated in sponsored sports in 2024-25.
A record number of NCAA student-athletes participated in 2024-25.https://t.co/v8uYPRLuCo
— NCAA News (@NCAA_PR) September 15, 2025
Seizing on a theme spawned from the haggling over potential expansion of the College Football Playoff and March Madness, Campbell has painted SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti as greedy leaders not doing enough to act in the best interest of all of college sports.
Campbell has aligned himself with lawmakers who have already expressed concerns about the bill — most notably Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-Wash.) and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). They say SCORE is good for the power conferences, not so much for the rest.
“Greg Sankey and Petitti need to take a break here and stop the bullying and work with all the conferences and take a fresh look at it,” Baumgartner said.
Cantwell recently sent a letter to all Division I university presidents, chancellors and boards detailing her concerns about SCORE. Last week, her office released a report that the average school in one of the power conferences received nearly 12 times more in league television revenue distributions than the other FBS conferences, and that this gap increased by 584 percent between 2002 and 2023. It also stated that 41 Division I Olympic sports programs have been cut since May 2024.
“The college sports landscape is complicated and evolving quickly,” Cantwell wrote, “but it does not serve the diverse academic institutions in each of our states, or the passionate fans that root for their favorite teams, to lock in a distorted system that effectively allows a few powerhouse schools to start every game with a few points already on the board in their favor.”
Campbell praised Cantwell and the report in a social media post on Thursday, writing the Democratic senator “will be a great partner in finding the right solutions.”
Politics can make for some unusual alliances, like a Texas oilman and a Pacific Northwest environmentalist.
Campbell has also drummed up opposition among Republicans in Texas.
I agree with Cody. I will not advance this bill until we’ve addressed these concerns and more, Let’s get this right. https://t.co/z2dntPrYj0
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) September 7, 2025
And on Monday, Campbell published an op-ed in USA Today detailing why the SCORE Act is not the solution — at least not as it is currently written.
The Sports Broadcasting Act
Campbell’s grand plan for saving college sports involves amending the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 to give colleges and conferences the same antitrust protections professional sports leagues have. Then, the thinking goes, conferences can bundle their football-driven media rights, double or even triple what they make now on those television contracts and better fund everything — including the new revenue sharing system which allows schools to pay athletes up to $20.5 million this year.
The plan also calls for a new entity created by the federal government to oversee those bundled media rights and a new structure for major college football.
Campbell’s plan has a lot of skeptics within college sports, most notably in the SEC and Big Ten. Without those two conferences, the plan goes nowhere.
Campbell and others who support the plan want the SCORE Act to address the Sports Broadcasting Act. Others fear that will bring the SCORE Act to a screeching halt by sending the bill through the Judiciary Committee.
“I don’t think we can get it through,” said Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), one of the SCORE Act’s sponsors. “(Amending the SBA) needs to be studied before there’s any action taken, in my opinion.”
Even some in college sports who are open-minded to Campbell’s idea aren’t looking to attach it to the SCORE Act.
Drama behind the scenes
At a time when college sports leaders are trying to show a unified front in support of the SCORE Act, alignment is not perfect.
Commissioners of the so-called Group of Six conferences — American, Mid-American, Sun Belt, Mountain West, Pac-12 and Conference USA — met about two weeks ago to try to get aligned on various issues. After the meeting, a letter drafted by American commissioner Tim Pernetti’s staff and asking SCORE to address the Sports Broadcasting Act was circulated among those conferences.
The purpose was to continue the discussion and consolidate an idea among the group. Multiple people involved with those conferences say the letter did not have enough support to be signed and sent to lawmakers.
No big deal, right? Nope.
The letter broke contain, first ending up with Sankey, who fired off a scolding email to the G6 commissioners about not working well with others. That email somehow found its way to Baumgartner, who blasted it out on social media.
Read the subtext of this letter from SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey to the commissioners of other conferences. Drop the bullying BS, Greg. Do what’s right to create a level playing field for ALL schools and protect the future of the Olympic sports landscape. 🇺🇸 https://t.co/bFnTGWbmei pic.twitter.com/NReNhmDLDB
— Congressman Michael Baumgartner (@RepBaumgartner) September 8, 2025
That brought a behind-the-scenes spat into the open, helping SCORE Act opponents cultivate a perception of dissent in the ranks of the very leaders who have been pleading with Congress for help.
It also followed a weekend in which a TV ad urging viewers to tell their congressperson to vote yes for the SCORE Act ran during SEC games.
To be clear, there are definitely some concerns with how parts of the SCORE Act is worded. The NCAA’s newly implemented governance structure gives more voting weight to the power conferences than ever before. Some schools outside of those conferences — especially those outside of the 10 that sponsor major college football — are cautious about how much power is being handed over to the P4 and are seeking some tweaks to the bill.
Ten non-FBS conferences in July started doing their own lobbying for changes to the SCORE Act that would protect Division I membership criteria and revenue distribution. Amending the SBA is not a priority for this group.
“We were waiting for an updated draft to see what the lobbying efforts and other things have accomplished in an updated version of SCORE, but we never saw the updated draft before they were potentially going to vote on it,” Big West commissioner Dan Butterly said. “So we were all kind of in a defensive stance waiting to see what that was going to look like.”
Changes to a bill at this stage are not unusual. Neither are lawmaker deliberations over whether to vote on it.
The fact that the SCORE Act hasn’t been brought to the floor isn’t necessarily a reason for those who support it to panic, but after so much work has gone into pushing for legislation, the pressure is on to keep the momentum going.
“If I can make it better, I’ll make it better,” Bilirakis said. “I don’t know if we have the votes yet, but I certainly don’t want to take any chances. I want to make sure we include everyone and get the best possible bill with the objective to protect the athletes.”
— The Athletic‘s Matt Baker contributed reporting.
(Photo: Wes Hale / Getty Images)