The Protect College Sports Act cleared the Senate this week, and DMoney and Mike Ryan broke down the one amendment Miami fought for and why they still want the whole thing dead.

DMoney: I want to talk about something that's going to impact the Canes very directly. The latest is the Protect College Sports Act, which passed the Senate. Not entirely surprising, although it was a pretty big bipartisan vote. Seventy-seven votes in a hundred-member chamber.

I'll note that a House staffer told Ross Dellenger, who's the main guy on this beat, that in his view the bill is dead. There are 435 members in the House. It's a lot more diverse and it looks like the House won't get to this until the lame-duck period.

Even assuming the House passes this, which is very much in question, the bill's been softened a little toward the Miami Hurricanes. Ashley Moody, Republican from Florida, introduced an amendment to raise the conference cap from 19 to 20.

There's a ton in this bill that impacts conference expansion: You have to be independent for three years if you change conferences, or wait six years for the whole thing to sunset. That six-year window was added later so teams like Miami can get out when the TV deals expire.

Mike Ryan: Miami's been very effective behind the scenes. They have plugged in people and they're doing their best to make this a little bit more palatable. But this is dead on arrival. Like you said, the House isn't back in session until after Election Day, and Election Day is widely expected to change the way the House looks.

I hate that the government is involved. There's a lot I don't like about it. Twenty teams is a bonus, and you'd like to think that after Notre Dame gets in, Miami is top of the heap. But it's still a decision to be made.

A brand like North Carolina is super appealing in terms of revenue, so Miami would have a fight on its hands. If this trajectory keeps going for Mario Cristobal's program, though, it's going to be hard to deny.

The main takeaway is that Miami is very effective behind the scenes at softening this and making sure its concerns are heard by the right people. But to me, this is much ado about nothing. I'm glad the template's there in case this thing ever does get through the House. At least we have the 20 in there. On the whole, though, I hate it all.

DMoney: I think this thing is fatally flawed.

Now it's in the House, which is more diverse. So many more people, more viewpoints, more unpredictable. The House Rules Committee has members from the Congressional Black Caucus who don't like this bill, and members of the House Freedom Caucus, on the other side of the spectrum, who don't like it either. So there are enemies on that committee, and that makes it harder to pass. A lot of people in the House supported the SCORE Act, their own bill, which failed. So it's territorial. You didn't support our bill, we're not passing yours.

I'm optimistic this fails. Ultimately, there has to be rules but this isn't it. There are some good things in there that are going to be popular: The five-for-five, the one-time transfer too.

The conference expansion piece, though? Who's screaming about conference expansion? The conferences already expanded. Now it's just a matter of trying to keep Miami out.

Mike Ryan: And we're already at a crazy number of conference games. You're going to have a lot of teams that never play each other.

Look, I'm very pro-labor, but I'm also pro-cap, and people get confused by that. Doesn't a cap limit wages? Aren't you against that? But if you have a seat at the table and things are collectively bargained, you get something in exchange for conceding a cap. The fatal flaw in all of this is that there isn't a seat at the table for the players. I hope that when it gets to the House, people grandstand and make a big issue of it.

This is a very interesting time in American politics. A lot of grandstanding happened on the front end to get it this far, so people can hold up their hands to important boosters and donors and say, look, I did my part. Then everything gets tabled until after Election Day, when a lot is going to be different, and behind the scenes you're leveraging different folks. So yeah, great to send a signal, keep people like Nick Saban a little bit happy, give them a small dub. But in reality, nothing's going to happen here until the United States has its election, and who knows what happens after that.

DMoney: We want it to fail. We have the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball, and baseball needs a cap majorly. You can see models of what a cap and a collective bargaining process look like. This is a half measure that mixes popular stuff with stuff that doesn't matter, like conference expansion, which is the part that hurts Miami the most.

The Big Ten and SEC are going to get the biggest rights deals when the next round gets signed. Miami wants to be part of that party. If there's a cap on the teams in those two conferences, really the only two that matter, Miami could get left out. That's why they wanted the Big Ten at 20. It leaves room for both Notre Dame and Miami.

Brett McMurphy, who covers this nationally and talks to a ton of people, thinks Miami is at the top of the list for the Big Ten for all the reasons we know. Ratings, brand, market, and the academic credentials. He thinks Miami is right at the front of the line, and we want to be in the Big Ten.

Mike Ryan: I agree, but I don't know what North Carolina has done behind the scenes, and when this becomes real, it's a decision to be made. The Big Ten, especially in basketball, really likes the North Carolina brand. I know that.

DMoney: Regionally, it's a better fit. There's a lot of old money there.

Mike Ryan: But breaking North Carolina away from Duke, I just don't see it. Look at what happened with Texas and Oklahoma. They went out the door together. Duke is nowhere near as big an athletic brand as North Carolina, even with how prestigious the basketball team is. North Carolina is successful top-down, lacrosse, soccer, baseball. It's a really appealing brand.

But ultimately, the bill as it stands right now, crafted by the SEC, the Big Ten and Notre Dame, leaves Miami at a competitive disadvantage if it passes as written and the door closes before Miami can walk into either of those conferences. What we're worried about is the haves crafting the rules, getting things done under the table, shutting Miami out and enforcing things against Miami to keep it at bay. That strengthens a competitive disadvantage that already exists.

We'll stay on this as it moves to the House. Subscribe to the CanesInsight YouTube channel and turn on notifications so you don't miss the next update. The full conversation is below.

 

If Miami gets into the Big 10, Miami football is dead.

No way on earth we will recruit the players we want by scheduling games in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan etc in October/November, and we are NOT built like those teams. They are big, lumbering teams that we will beat, but at immense physical cost - fast beats slow, but big only has to catch you once to injure you.

I can sell a family in Louisiana, Georgia or Florida easily on sending their son to the U, and they can see them play several times a year in the SEC. I can’t do that for the B1G…

As much as I hate the SEC, that’s our only option. Period.

The Big 10 keeps winning nattys somehow though, OSU, Michigan, Indiana

 

The Big 10 keeps winning nattys somehow though, OSU, Michigan, Indiana

And Miami is not those teams. Golden tried to make us into a Big 10 team, we don’t recruit that way, and will never be able to.

 

I initially supported having some sort of control over transfers and eligibility, etc.

But this law completely butchered conferences and TV media deals. So im out.

The way its being crafted is clear who is in charge (espn, sec, big10), which means enforcement of any rules will never be fair to us.

Their method also leaves two conferences to die, again terrible for the sport. Even the SEC adding an extra conference game and killing more inter conference exposure and insulating their power further js already being felt with the Polls. Just two conferences will be so whack. So yea, canes can survive by going to a big conference (at an unreasonable price), but the rest of acc and big12 teams will die slowly? Just dumb.

So **** it, leave it as the wild wild west I guess.

 

Ah yes, the ever lovely travel cross country to play two teams.

As opposed to flying to Bay Area?

Travel not much different than ACC now if Miami went to B1G

 

As opposed to flying to Bay Area?

Travel not much different than ACC now if Miami went to B1G

Reading comprehension is not your thing - I specifically mentioned SEC.

The ACC is useless, look at the rankings right now. A two loss Miami team will go through the same charade as last year every time, a two loss SEC team is in almost guaranteed.

 

Disagree ... look no further than Oregon, USC, Ohio State.

Cristobal out Big Ten Footballed the Wisconsin Badgers at their peak when Russell Wilson went there.

Agree, this is patently incorrect and ahistorical.

Cristobal's teams are built to go toe to toe with B1G teams.

See Also: Ohio St last year.

 

I highly doubt that the PTTSA bill will pass in the House.

 

Reading comprehension is not your thing - I specifically mentioned SEC.

The ACC is useless, look at the rankings right now. A two loss Miami team will go through the same charade as last year every time, a two loss SEC team is in almost guaranteed.

You did?!? I see no mention of SEC

Ah yes, the ever lovely travel cross country to play two teams.

Ohio State recruits big boys from Ohio/PA and skill players from Florida. Do you want to give them and Michigan even more inroads to SoFla?

 

If Miami gets into the Big 10, Miami football is dead.

No way on earth we will recruit the players we want by scheduling games in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan etc in October/November, and we are NOT built like those teams. They are big, lumbering teams that we will beat, but at immense physical cost - fast beats slow, but big only has to catch you once to injure you.

I can sell a family in Louisiana, Georgia or Florida easily on sending their son to the U, and they can see them play several times a year in the SEC. I can’t do that for the B1G…

As much as I hate the SEC, that’s our only option. Period.

@Tony4Canes reading is fundamental.

 

@Tony4Canes reading is fundamental.

Did I reply to any part of that?!? No..

 

Being pro-cap and saying you’re pro-labor is idiotic. Saying you just want labor to save a seat at the table but you want a salary cap completely misses the whole corrupt insidious purpose of what has gone on for decades. Amin and Mike Ryan are useful idiots with what they put out and the YouTube comments on that short clip on DLS rightly say as much.

Never mind the fact that the cap in the bill is a salary cap for entire athletic departments across the country who all have different successes in different sports and oftentimes do not even carry the same sports as other comparable universities. Not to mention pro sports don’t group salary caps together for multiple sports at once, yet alone different gendered sports.

Then again, 99% of the media is dumb enough to believe the NCAA’s and universities’ lies about college basketball becoming net negatives for athletic departments despite the fact that march madness alone literally funds all of d2 and d3, all of the 8, 9 and 10 figure settlements the NCAA has lost in the last dozen years, while only giving out half of the over billion dollars in media revenue to d1 conferences; as the NCAA keeps the rest to themselves.

As this has gone on for decades, the NCAA literally has created pseudo investment firms underneath its grasp because they’ve been taking this TV money for march madness, while paying their president and executives millions in addition to the their lawyers, and stacked up scores of alternate capital sources based off the players’ labor while pretending like they “diversified,” their income streams when really they just diversified their exploitation.

What most people cannot grasp is that while they think Bryce underwood was the worst investment ever, he is in fact severely underpaid. In any salaried cap operation similar to the pros, all p4 collegiate starters on basketball and football teams would be making 7 figures, and many quarterbacks would be making 8. The CFP alone is was a 6 year 7.8 billion dollar deal, and it’s currently being expanded and renegotiated.

In the NFL and NBA, players’ salaries are derived from a direct revenue cut that the similarly situated players in college sports are not close to receiving as it stands today. They get paid so handsomely after decades of earning nothing or earning in the shadows, that the fact the universities are still bringing in money hand over fist yet want to regain control is ignored. Do the math on if half of that 1.1, 1.2 billion dollars of march madness tv money — yet alone the other 9 to 10 figures march madness brings in thru tickets, merchandise, etc. — had to be split up halfway w/ the 14 players on each of the 76 teams. . .. . . Split equally w/ all teams’ players regardless of how far they advance or how much they play, the players would be in line to receive about 400-500k each; again, just for making march madness.

 

And Miami is not those teams. Golden tried to make us into a Big 10 team, we don’t recruit that way, and will never be able to.

????????? Golden tried to use HIS defensive philosophy ... period. He tried to get the south Florida stud athletes ... but they went elsewhere. That broke AG's spirit and made him want to bail to PSU.

 

Being pro-cap and saying you’re pro-labor is idiotic. Saying you just want labor to save a seat at the table but you want a salary cap completely misses the whole corrupt insidious purpose of what has gone on for decades. Amin and Mike Ryan are useful idiots with what they put out and the YouTube comments on that short clip on DLS rightly say as much.

Never mind the fact that the cap in the bill is a salary cap for entire athletic departments across the country who all have different successes in different sports and oftentimes do not even carry the same sports as other comparable universities. Not to mention pro sports don’t group salary caps together for multiple sports at once, yet alone different gendered sports.

Then again, 99% of the media is dumb enough to believe the NCAA’s and universities’ lies about college basketball becoming net negatives for athletic departments despite the fact that march madness alone literally funds all of d2 and d3, all of the 8, 9 and 10 figure settlements the NCAA has lost in the last dozen years, while only giving out half of the over billion dollars in media revenue to d1 conferences; as the NCAA keeps the rest to themselves.

As this has gone on for decades, the NCAA literally has created pseudo investment firms underneath its grasp because they’ve been taking this TV money for march madness, while paying their president and executives millions in addition to the their lawyers, and stacked up scores of alternate capital sources based off the players’ labor while pretending like they “diversified,” their income streams when really they just diversified their exploitation.

What most people cannot grasp is that while they think Bryce underwood was the worst investment ever, he is in fact severely underpaid. In any salaried cap operation similar to the pros, all p4 collegiate starters on basketball and football teams would be making 7 figures, and many quarterbacks would be making 8. The CFP alone is was a 6 year 7.8 billion dollar deal, and it’s currently being expanded and renegotiated.

In the NFL and NBA, players’ salaries are derived from a direct revenue cut that the similarly situated players in college sports are not close to receiving as it stands today. They get paid so handsomely after decades of earning nothing or earning in the shadows, that the fact the universities are still bringing in money hand over fist yet want to regain control is ignored. Do the math on if half of that 1.1, 1.2 billion dollars of march madness tv money — yet alone the other 9 to 10 figures march madness brings in thru tickets, merchandise, etc. — had to be split up halfway w/ the 14 players on each of the 76 teams. . .. . . Split equally w/ all teams’ players regardless of how far they advance or how much they play, the players would be in line to receive about 400-500k each; again, just for making march madness.

I hope qbs keep making a lot of money and stay in school to get reps. The quality of qb play in the nfl is horrible. I think more experience in the college ranks will help.

 

Being pro-cap and saying you’re pro-labor is idiotic. Saying you just want labor to save a seat at the table but you want a salary cap completely misses the whole corrupt insidious purpose of what has gone on for decades. Amin and Mike Ryan are useful idiots with what they put out and the YouTube comments on that short clip on DLS rightly say as much.

Never mind the fact that the cap in the bill is a salary cap for entire athletic departments across the country who all have different successes in different sports and oftentimes do not even carry the same sports as other comparable universities. Not to mention pro sports don’t group salary caps together for multiple sports at once, yet alone different gendered sports.

Then again, 99% of the media is dumb enough to believe the NCAA’s and universities’ lies about college basketball becoming net negatives for athletic departments despite the fact that march madness alone literally funds all of d2 and d3, all of the 8, 9 and 10 figure settlements the NCAA has lost in the last dozen years, while only giving out half of the over billion dollars in media revenue to d1 conferences; as the NCAA keeps the rest to themselves.

As this has gone on for decades, the NCAA literally has created pseudo investment firms underneath its grasp because they’ve been taking this TV money for march madness, while paying their president and executives millions in addition to the their lawyers, and stacked up scores of alternate capital sources based off the players’ labor while pretending like they “diversified,” their income streams when really they just diversified their exploitation.

What most people cannot grasp is that while they think Bryce underwood was the worst investment ever, he is in fact severely underpaid. In any salaried cap operation similar to the pros, all p4 collegiate starters on basketball and football teams would be making 7 figures, and many quarterbacks would be making 8. The CFP alone is was a 6 year 7.8 billion dollar deal, and it’s currently being expanded and renegotiated.

In the NFL and NBA, players’ salaries are derived from a direct revenue cut that the similarly situated players in college sports are not close to receiving as it stands today. They get paid so handsomely after decades of earning nothing or earning in the shadows, that the fact the universities are still bringing in money hand over fist yet want to regain control is ignored. Do the math on if half of that 1.1, 1.2 billion dollars of march madness tv money — yet alone the other 9 to 10 figures march madness brings in thru tickets, merchandise, etc. — had to be split up halfway w/ the 14 players on each of the 76 teams. . .. . . Split equally w/ all teams’ players regardless of how far they advance or how much they play, the players would be in line to receive about 400-500k each; again, just for making march madness.

Geniune question, I dont follow this as close as I should.

Is the NCAA main argument that there is not enough money to pay players? That seems like an incredibly dumb argument, in an open market, theyll get paid what the can get paid.

Or is their argument, which is what I thought it was, is that there should be a cap for competitive balance? Its a fact not all schools are remotely close to rhe same financial footing so it would cause a disparity in competition (which has always been the case, they would just decide who it would be enforced against in the past).

 

I hope qbs keep making a lot of money and stay in school to get reps. The quality of qb play in the nfl is horrible. I think more experience in the college ranks will help.

Agreed, the NFL would also benefit from more teams being like the Raiders, Rams and Packers and not being afraid to sit their 1st round quarterback for one or two seasons.

Joe Burrow didn’t become Joe Burrow until year 5 which was his second starting season.

 

Geniune question, I dont follow this as close as I should.

Is the NCAA main argument that there is not enough money to pay players? That seems like an incredibly dumb argument, in an open market, theyll get paid what the can get paid.

Or is their argument, which is what I thought it was, is that there should be a cap for competitive balance? Its a fact not all schools are remotely close to rhe same financial footing so it would cause a disparity in competition (which has always been the case, they would just decide who it would be enforced against in the past).

It’s a bit of a multifold argument from the NCAA/conferences/individual universities. They will use any and every argument to further their agenda, retrofitting it to each aggrieved party as they attempt to establish consensus. So they use both of the arguments you stated. Not each institution approaches the cap in the same fashion.

Spoiler: Cont

Certainly Rutgers, Colorado, Syracuse and others say that a cap is needed for competitive balances, and they say they need it because they don’t have the money. For example, Alabama’s AD says no sport is profitable except men’s football, and men’s football costs are rising due to the increased NIL so it must be capped. Hard to say people in power are generally lying or whether they believe what they say, and the media never presses them on these type of things. But the their claims don’t survive basic scrutiny.

First, every school isn’t going to max out their spending, and the cap increases with inflation. So we can still have many situations where one school in the same conference as another spends half of that other. Second, the cap is applied to all sports, so a school like Duke would obviously prioritize their basketball program, and as such, different schools w/ different athletic histories would move to outspend competitors in various sports—leaving the same imbalances that are here now—if not exacerbating and locking them in.

Lastly, as you point out, not all schools are remotely close to the same financial footing. The bill tried to address this by forcing the B1G and SEC to have to negotiate collectively with the rest of FBS when it came towards media deals. Of course, the B1G and SEC benefit the most from lopsided financial TV $$$$ so they rejected this. Thus, this provision of the bill was amended as to make it toothless in order to gain the endorsements of those two conferences. So without that, the biggest consequences of the bill have to do with limiting conference expansion, restricting more than one transfer, and a hard cap on NIL money athletes can receive.

Spoiler: Money can be a misnomer

Money doesn’t equal success, despite how often agents/ADs/media try to say so. Indiana wasn’t a top 5 NIL roster in CFB last year, and from a relationship standpoint, they largely won a national championship because Cignetti had Alberto committed to him at JMU before getting the IU job, which enabled them to be the frontrunner for his older brother one year later. UK and IU hoops keep outspending competitors without getting the results they want.

They use guilt trips to get their point across, and state that all the spending on football is causing multimillion deficits across collegiate athletics; moreover, due to this so-called artificial arms’ race, schools will begin cutting golf/swimming/many other Olympic Sports, oftentimes women’s sports, at the expense of cutting costs to sustain football. Meanwhile, in reality:

The NCAA took a key step towards adding flag football as an official championship sport on Tuesday, as a key committee formally endorsed sponsoring the sport. If approved, the first national championship could be held as soon as spring 2028.……The Big 12 is the first major conference to explore adding women's flag football as an official varsity sport, with at least six member schools expressing interest in adding teams by 2028. The Big South became the first Division I conference to officially sponsor the sport. Nebraska is the first major school to formally add the sport.

The most often repeated phrase is that what’s going on is not sustainable, and they oftentimes tie in situations like Trinidad Chambliss going to court or Mensah being sued as part of their push to pass the bill. Everything’s crazy and college athletics is being ruined, we need the NCAA to be empowered again.

Spoiler: Sustainable?

The sustainability of 9 to 10 figure stadium renovations, multimillion facilities, 8 figure coaches’ buyouts and 7-8 figure salaries for coaches at large, millions in legal fees, lobby fees, executives’ payments, etc goes unnoticed.

The petty corruption of ND grad, former UNC AD Bubba Cunningham, making sure UNC got tournament bid in 2025 as apart of the selection committee becomes forgotten, as does the 100k bonus he got, and only got, because UNC making the tournament trigged that clause in his contract.

 

A lot of people saying this has no shot in the House and I am inclined to agree, but a lot of those same people (myself included) said it had no shot in Senate and not only did it pass, but it passed with almost 80% of the vote.

 

I spoke to an agent today who is very well connected politically as it stands today the odds of this passing the house are less than 5%. Dems don’t want to give trump a win (among other things).

Dems aren’t in control of the house at the moment but point taken. With all the serious issues we are dealing with (and what could be potentially coming), college football is and shouldn’t be a priority.

 

Lol..much ado about nothing...

 

A lot of people saying this has no shot in the House and I am inclined to agree, but a lot of those same people (myself included) said it had no shot in Senate and not only did it pass, but it passed with almost 80% of the vote.

Passed ... but with revisions. "A Bill" might pass the house but it is highly doubtful that the exact bill that passed the Senate will get through the house without serious modification ... ie ... eliminating the 3 years as independent.