From left, former University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban, University of Notre Dame director of athletics Pete Bevacqua, and West Virginia University President Gordon Gee, Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould, and University of Utah’s Lance Holtzclaw testify before Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing to examine college sports, supporting student athletes, and fair competition on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) Congress is considering a proposal that would increase revenue for college sports while raising the cost of television and streaming for everyone else.
The recently introduced Protect College Sports Act seeks to address the many challenges confronting college athletics. But in attempting to ease the industry’s mounting financial pressures, the bill includes a troubling provision: an antitrust exemption that would allow universities and conferences to pool and sell certain media rights collectively.
The rationale for this proposed exemption is straightforward. By negotiating television rights collectively, schools would gain greater leverage over broadcasters and streaming platforms, thereby generating more revenue. Supporters argue that this funding would help stabilize a rapidly changing industry and protect opportunities in women’s and Olympic sports.
Those are legitimate goals. The real question is who ultimately pays.
Rights-pooling works by reducing competition. Today, broadcasters negotiate separately with the Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Big 12 and other conferences. The proposed exemption would replace that marketplace with a single bargaining entity able to demand higher prices for must-watch games.
But broadcasters and streaming platforms are unlikely to absorb those added costs themselves. Much of the increase would likely be passed along to consumers through higher subscription prices or less viewer-friendly distribution arrangements. One way or another, fans would pay more to watch college sports, while non-fans would see their cable and streaming bills go up as well.
Congress should be especially cautious because college football has experimented with centralized television control before. Prior to the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in NCAA v. Board of Regents, the NCAA limited how many games could be televised and how often schools could appear on television. The court ruled that this arrangement unlawfully restricted competition. The explosion of televised college football that followed was not an accident; it was the product of greater competition, not less.
Supporters of the proposed exemption may respond that preserving women’s and Olympic sports justifies the added cost. That argument deserves consideration. But lawmakers should be honest about the trade-off. The proposal would not create new wealth out of thin air; it would shift additional costs onto viewers to generate more money for athletic departments.
Nor is there much reason to believe the exemption would produce lasting financial stability. The central problem in college sports is not a shortage of revenue. It is a shortage of restraint.
For decades, major athletic departments have spent virtually every new dollar they received in pursuit of competitive advantage. Television windfalls funded escalating coaching salaries, lavish facilities, expanded support staffs, luxury travel, and ever-more ambitious recruiting operations.
Without meaningful financial discipline, any new media revenue would simply raise the baseline in the college sports arms race. These additional funds would only relieve pressure until a rival spent more.
College sports needs a serious federal framework. Congress can — and should — establish national rules for athlete compensation, transfers and recruiting. It can also demand greater financial transparency and discipline, while creating incentives for schools to preserve opportunities in women’s and Olympic sports.
What it should not do is grant college sports an antitrust exemption that allows the industry to charge more for the same product while avoiding the harder task of controlling its own spending.
Before giving college sports greater power to extract money from broadcasters and viewers, lawmakers should ask a simple question: If more revenue has never solved college sports’ spending problem before, why should anyone believe it will now?
Nathaniel Grow is Professor of Business Law and Ethics at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and the author of more than two dozen law review articles on sports law, including a forthcoming article on pooled media rights and college sports reform.
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