I grew up in Michigan, so even though I didn’t go to the University of Michigan (too rich for my blood), college football was all about the maize and blue. My dad loved Wolverines football and gave my brother-in-law all sorts of a hard time about his having gone to Michigan State (only way it could’ve been worse is if he’d gone to Ohio State). They’ve both passed away in the last couple of years, but the spirit of their love of their respective schools and their football teams lives on in our family.
It's getting, well, different now, however. When I was a kid, college sports were the audition for the pros and occasional scandals would see heralded universities across the country – including Michigan – penalized, both as programs and individual players for violating the NCAA rules.
Those rules changed with Name, Image and Likeness rights (NIL) and the ability of student athletes to make money, sometimes huge sums of it, while in school as “amateur athletes.”
Schools were making fortunes off these players, why shouldn’t the players themselves? That made sense, even if it changed the spirit of the game, because why shouldn’t the people everyone is getting rich off of also get a piece of the action?
Of course, once Pandora’s Box was opened the lid was blown off and government, as it always does, wanted a bigger seat at the table. Naturally, what government was looking to push was awful. As President Trump’s former economic advisor Stephen Moore put it, Congress “concocted the so-called Saving College Sports plan, which would create a government ‘oversight’ panel that would negotiate media rights on behalf of colleges and conferences across the country. The idea is to share the wealth: Bring socialism to the football stadium and the basketball arena.”
Where there’s a dollar, you can count on a politician there looking to find a way to get their cut.
This awful idea would mean “a federally appointed panel” that “would create a bureaucratic nightmare for college sports. The government-appointed panel would be responsible for dictating the schedules of 26 sports across 136 FBS colleges. The amount of games the panel would be responsible for managing would far surpass the tasks of the MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL combined.”
Ever try to get a human being – the right human being – on the phone at the Social Security Administration or Medicare? Now imagine that experience running Saturday football.
Enter Senator Ted Cruz to save the day, right? Nope. I mean, he enters, but he’s not saving the day.
Cruz teamed with Democrat Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) to get on board for the “Protect College Sports Act of 2026.” Rarely is a legislative proposal so universally reviled that it can make someone like Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy sound reasonable, but this one did. Murphy points out the “primary effect seems to be to limit the compensation of athletes while protecting the huge salaries of all the adults - coaches, (athletics directors), sports industry executives - who are getting rich off the performance of the players.”
Is there anyone who thinks the players need to have their earnings reined in? Most will never make it to the pros, this will be as good as it gets – why screw them over?
More importantly, is there anyone (Ted Cruz included) who really thinks the federal government, through the Federal Communications Commission, should have a say in how college sports are scheduled and broadcast?
College sports are changing, and some of those changes are for the better. That athletes are getting a taste of the money their labor generates is a good thing, even as it fundamentally changes the collegiate-athlete experience. And there is now what is essentially “free agency” at the end of every year in college sports, which betrays the loyalty college sports was known for.
Most importantly, and most dangerously, all the money moving around in a freewheeling fashion over the last few years has drawn the attention of the government. Many want a piece of the action, some want to shape the changes to benefit their chosen schools or favored conference – when it comes to politicians, their motives are ultimately known only to them.
But that last thing any fan wants, or any sport needs, is more bureaucracy. In fact, if politicians really want to “protect college sports” they should protect it FROM government.
Derek Hunter is the host of the Derek Hunter Show on WMAL in Washington, DC, and has a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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