The Protect College Sports Act had a provision amended this week, and somehow it managed to make the bill even worse.
The bill’s original conference‑targeting language was already clunky, setting a revenue mark that if surpassed means the conference can’t add more members. Now it has been rewritten so that any league earning at least $700 million in revenue would fall under its restrictions.
That’s down from the original $1 billion threshold. And that one change pulls the ACC and Big 12 into the same bucket as the SEC and Big Ten.
A significant change has been made to the Protect College Sports Act’s anti-expansion provision, sources tell @YahooSports.
The provision, at first only targeting SEC/B1G, now applies to leagues earning $700 M in revenue, down from $1 billion. It now incorporates ACC and Big 12.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) June 18, 2026
On paper, the goal is obvious. Lawmakers are trying to prevent the SEC and Big Ten from breaking away and forming a two‑league super world where everyone else is left behind. They want to freeze conference membership where it is right now and stop the next round of realignment before it starts.
But in practice, this is a mess. It’s a mess now headed to the Senate floor, too.
Next steps: Senate Majority Leader John Thune holds the authority to bring the legislation to the floor of the Senate for a full vote.
This is the second piece of legislation to make it this far. The SCORE Act advanced out of committee but was never brought to the floor. https://t.co/ma6DkYuyDx
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) June 18, 2026
This bill locks the door for everyone else
If this becomes law, the ACC, Big 12, SEC and Big Ten are effectively sealed off. No one moves up. No one moves down. No one shifts anywhere. The Pac‑12, who was just resurrected, is never coming back. The Group of 6 schools are stuck forever in the same place they’ve always been, with no path to growth and no chance to elevate into a bigger league. Notre Dame will forever remain an independent (which probably is something its fine with.)
The people writing this bill are terrified of the SEC and Big Ten forming a super league. But they don’t seem to care at all about the schools outside the power structure who are now being told, in legal language, that they will never have a shot to join it.
That’s not protecting college sports. That’s cementing a hierarchy.
This isn’t a CBA issue. It’s just bad policy
There are plenty of complicated questions in college sports right now. Revenue sharing. Employment status. Eligibility. All of that can be done through a Collective Bargain Agreement with players.
This isn’t one of them.
This isn’t a negotiation point. It isn’t a bargaining chip. It isn’t something that needs to be massaged into a broader deal with players. It’s simply a bad idea that doesn’t solve the problem it claims to address and creates new ones that no one asked for.
And because it’s Congress, there’s a good chance it stays in the bill anyway.
The bottom line
The Protect College Sports Act keeps trying to fix problems by creating new ones. The latest revenue threshold change is another example. It might slow down the SEC and Big Ten, but it slams the door on everyone else and locks it from the inside.
And now that the bill has cleared committee, it’s one step closer to becoming law.
If the goal is to stabilize college sports, this isn’t the way to do it. This is the kind of provision that should die in committee. The fact that it didn’t tells you everything you need to know.
