crs_reports: R49359

Congressional Research Service reports with summaries, authors, and topic classifications.

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R49359 College Sports Media Rights: Background and Issues for Congressional Consideration 2026-09-23T04:00:00Z 2026-09-25T14:23:14Z Active Reports Dana A. Scherer   The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), a voluntary, self-governing organization of four-year colleges and universities, includes intercollegiate athletics programs organized into divisions, subdivisions, and conferences. Division I (DI) schools compete at the highest level and can offer students full athletic scholarships. Within DI are an elite group of conferences, known as the Autonomy or Power Four conferences, that have autonomy to create their own rules. For schools within the Power Four conferences, sales of media rights for college sports represent the largest source of revenue. College sports media rights contracts have far-reaching effects on the finances of schools and the quality of life of student athletes. Schools have switched conference memberships to maximize media revenue in lieu of geographic proximity. As a result, student athletes spend an increasing portion of their time traveling thousands of miles to play games. Moreover, as a condition of the media contracts that generate revenue for schools’ athletics departments, schools must pay to construct and operate on-site production studios and rely on students to produce and transmit telecasts of sporting events to cable networks and streaming services. Congress may consider issues relating to media rights contracts, conference alignments, and funding for college sports broadcast production facilities. As one option, Congress could amend current law. An example of such legislation in the 119th Congress is the Protect College Sports Act of 2026 (PCSA; S. 4668), which Senator Ted Cruz sponsored and for which Senator John Thune submitted an amendment in the nature of a substitute, S.Amdt. 6776. The bill with the amendment was considered by the Senate on September 22, 2026 (hereinafter PCSA, as amended). Title II of the PCSA, as amended, would amend the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 by giving an antitrust exemption to NCAA DI colleges and/or conferences to form and operate a new entity, known as a “covered entity,” to collectively negotiate media rights. The covered entity may form if enough schools voluntarily join and the entity meets certain requirements. One requirement is a mandate to offer a free local telecast option for viewing the broadcast of each football/basketball game within the college’s local television market. Another requirement is that the entity must include a minimum of 75% of schools within the DI Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). Section 205 of the PCSA, as amended, would add a new Section 7 to the Sports Broadcasting Act that would limit the ability of conferences generating more than $700 million in revenue for FY2025 or any subsequent fiscal year to merge or consolidate with, or acquire the assets or media rights of, another covered conference or any institution that has competed in football in a covered conference within the preceding three years, unless the transaction would produce a conference containing at least 75% of FBS schools. Such conferences could have a maximum of 19 members. Title III of the PCSA, as amended, would authorize Congress to appropriate $180 million annually for each of FY2027-FY2032 for a competitive grant program within the U.S. Department of Commerce to help historically Black colleges and universities invest in infrastructure relating to broadband (i.e., high-speed internet service and equipment), information technology, journalism, media production, and sports broadcasting. As schools rely on students to fulfill production mandates stipulated by their media contracts, a potential issue for consideration is the extent to which schools and media organizations may standardize working conditions and expectations for students, particularly if these mandates become part of the media distribution agreements negotiated by a covered entity (Title II of the PCSA, as amended). Another potential issue for congressional consideration is whether the Sports Broadcasting Act should provide an antitrust exemption for professional sports leagues to jointly negotiate media rights solely for media that is free to the public (e.g., broadcast television) or whether the exemption should extend to subscription media. Congress could also consider whether the provisions of the PCSA, as amended, governing conference expansion could discourage schools from joining a proposed covered entity. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R49359/R49359.2.pdf https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/HTML/R49359.html

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