A group of Senate Democrats are introducing a bill that, “among other concepts, amends the Sports Broadcasting Act to permit college conferences to pool broadcasting rights,” according to Ross Dellenger of YAHOO SPORTS. The bill, known as the SAFE Act, has “steep odds of passage,” but the “long-discussed change to the Sports Broadcasting Act is a notable inclusion in any legislation.” The bill would “not only amend the SBA, but would create a committee within the NCAA to help pool media rights, maximize revenues and fairly distribute those revenues to assure that schools maintain scholarship and roster levels for women’s and Olympic sports.” It “requires broadcast networks make available their football and basketball games on a non-exclusive basis” and “requires broadcast networks and streaming platforms to reconvey media rights to schools if the entity is not materially using the rights to also broadcast women’s and Olympic sports.” The SAFE Act also features a “wide variety of concepts unrelated to the Sports Broadcasting Act amendment.” It “codifies portions of the NCAA’s landmark House settlement and pre-empts state NIL laws,” though the legislation does “not address athlete employment and does not grant the NCAA and its conferences liability protection to enforce many of its rules — two glaring differences it has with the SCORE Act, the Republican-authored bill that is currently at the center of debate in the House of Representatives” (YAHOO SPORTS, 9/29).
