The Senate Passed the Protect College Sports Act. But Who Holds the Power?

The United States Senate has spoken. By a bipartisan vote of 77 to 22, senators passed the Protect College Sports Act, legislation that could fundamentally reshape college athletics in America. The bill now moves to the House of Representatives.

A vote that decisive should not end the conversation about college athletes. It should deepen it.

For all the debate about NIL, transfers, scholarships, healthcare, eligibility and the future of college sports, there is a question underneath all of it that matters deeply to me: Who has the power?

I ask that question as the founder of BLM Sports, but long before I founded an organization focused on athletes and communities, I was a sports mom. I know what it means to sit in the stands and watch your child put his body on the line. I know what it means to trust coaches, trainers, athletic departments and universities with something far more valuable than a winning season: your child.

Behind every jersey is a human being whose body, education, financial future and dreams can be affected by decisions made in rooms they may never enter. That is why this debate is personal to me, and why I cannot evaluate this legislation solely by asking what it gives athletes. I also have to ask what voice athletes have in determining the rules that govern them.

Protection Matters. But Protection Is Not Power.

There are meaningful athlete protections in the Protect College Sports Act, and we should acknowledge them. The legislation addresses NIL rights, scholarships, healthcare, health and safety standards and athlete agents, among other issues. Supporters also argue that a national framework is necessary to bring stability to a system shaped by litigation and different state laws.

Those things matter. Families need clarity. Athletes need healthcare and scholarship protections. Young people should be protected from predatory agents. Women’s and Olympic sports deserve protection. A national conversation about the future of college athletics is overdue.

But recognizing those benefits does not require us to stop asking difficult questions about power.

The NAACP opposed the legislation while acknowledging several of its athlete protections. Its concerns include the legal protections afforded to institutions, federal preemption and whether the legislation ultimately reinforces a system in which institutions retain disproportionate power. The Congressional Black Caucus has also raised concerns about the voices of Black athletes, HBCUs, coaches, agents and communities in determining the economic future of college sports.

There are Black leaders in sports who see the legislation differently and believe greater national stability can benefit athletes and their education. That perspective deserves to be heard too. Black people do not have to agree on every provision of a bill for us to recognize the magnitude of what is being decided.

Senator Cory Booker raised another important challenge during the Senate debate. A former Division I football player himself, Booker questioned whether athletes had sufficient input into the legislation and pushed the Senate to examine inequities throughout the college sports system.

That is the conversation I want us to have.

Scholarships, healthcare and safety standards are meaningful protections, and I do not minimize any of them. But protection is different from power. Power means having a meaningful voice in the rules governing your body, your compensation, your mobility and your future.

College athletes deserve both.

We Have to Follow the Money

College athletics has become an enormous economic enterprise, yet we spend a remarkable amount of time debating how much athletes should receive, how they should receive it, when they should be allowed to transfer and what limits should be placed around their economic opportunities.

We should be willing to examine the rest of the system with the same intensity.

Booker raised that disparity directly. His office noted that more than 40 football coaches earn over $5 million annually and that 15 fired coaches received nearly $250 million in contract buyouts in 2025. During consideration of the legislation, the Senate rejected his amendment concerning standards for varsity coaches by a vote of 47 to 52. His amendment addressing post eligibility insurance and catastrophic injury funding failed by an extraordinarily narrow 49 to 50 vote.

Those votes raise a question that extends far beyond one piece of legislation: Why is restraint so often part of the conversation when the subject is athlete compensation, but treated differently when the money flows elsewhere in college sports?

That is not an argument that coaches should not be compensated well or that universities should not have the resources necessary to operate successful athletic programs. It is an argument for consistency. If we are going to scrutinize the economics surrounding athletes, then we should be willing to scrutinize the entire economic ecosystem surrounding them.

At BLM Sports, Investment Is Part of the Answer

I did not create BLM Sports simply to comment on what is wrong with sports. I created it because I believe sports can be a vehicle for wellness, dignity, opportunity and economic power when we intentionally invest in the people and communities that make sports possible.

Our work is organized around three principles: Care. Capital. Competition.Care recognizes that athletes are human beings before they are statistics. Capital recognizes that talent should create economic opportunity and pathways that extend beyond the game. Competition means ensuring young people have access to the resources and opportunities necessary to compete.

And we are putting resources behind those beliefs.

This year, BLM Sports announced nearly $200,000 in investments in nonprofits, HBCU athletics and community initiatives nationwide. Those investments have supported organizations working in basketball, football, mentoring, wellness, youth development and community building. We have invested in HBCU athletics and in organizations creating opportunities for young people who may never become professional athletes but whose lives can still be transformed through sports.

We did not make those investments because we believe philanthropy alone can solve the structural issues facing college athletics. It cannot. We made them because institutions should be willing to invest in the people and communities from which they derive value.

There is a difference between benefiting from athletes and investing in them.

That distinction matters to me.

Black Athletes Cannot Be an Afterthought

We also cannot discuss the future of college sports without confronting race.

Black athletes have played an extraordinary role in the culture and economics surrounding major college football and basketball. Their contribution makes the question of athlete power particularly consequential for Black families and communities.

This is not simply about what an athlete gets paid. We have to confront who owns the value athletes help create, who writes the rules governing that value, who is protected when something goes wrong and whether athletes have enough power to challenge the system when those protections fail.

Trusting institutions to do the right thing is not enough. Good intentions are not a substitute for enforceable rights, independent representation and meaningful accountability.

That is why I believe the larger conversation about college sports should include an Athlete Bill of Rights. Athletes need independent representation and transparent revenue sharing. They need comprehensive and portable healthcare, including meaningful long term protection for documented injuries resulting from their participation. They need independent mechanisms for accountability, fair mobility, transparent contracts and meaningful due process.

And HBCUs must be part of this conversation from the beginning, not added as a footnote at the end.

As the economics of college sports change, HBCUs need investment, infrastructure, revenue opportunities, NIL resources and a meaningful voice in shaping whatever comes next. Supporting those institutions is not charity. It is an investment in institutions that have developed generations of Black talent, leadership and excellence.

The Senate Vote Is Not the End of the Conversation

The Protect College Sports Act now moves to the House. Whatever ultimately happens there, the Senate debate has exposed questions that should remain with us long after the legislative process ends.

We should protect scholarships, healthcare and NIL rights. We should protect women’s and Olympic sports, regulate predatory agents, create stability and strengthen HBCUs. But we cannot stop at protection. Athletes also deserve meaningful power in determining the future of a system their talent helps sustain.

At BLM Sports, that principle is not theoretical. It is why we have invested nearly $200,000 in nonprofits, HBCU athletics and community initiatives. It is why our work connects care, capital and competition. And it is why I believe the future of college sports cannot simply be designed by institutions and handed to athletes after the decisions have already been made.

Athletes are not simply labor or a line on an institution’s balance sheet. They are young people trusting these institutions with their bodies, education and futures. If we truly want to protect college sports, we should build the next era with them, not simply around them.

Protection matters. But protection without power is not enough.