By: Michael Spiers

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

For the past few years, I’ve written plenty about how college athletics has become almost unrecognizable.

The transfer portal has become free agency. NIL has evolved from athletes making money off their name, image and likeness into something that often looks a lot like recruiting payroll. Schools can now share revenue directly with athletes. And seemingly every few months another court ruling changes the rules again.

Something has to give. That is why the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA) currently moving through Congress deserves our attention.

The bipartisan legislation, sponsored by Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Maria Cantwell of Washington, cleared an important hurdle in early September when the Senate voted 77-22 to move it forward for debate and possible final passage.

At its core, the PCSA attempts to create one national set of rules, which is something college athletics desperately needs.

Among other provisions, the legislation would establish federal standards for NIL, place limits around revenue sharing, provide the NCAA and conferences certain antitrust protections to enforce rules, establish medical and health protections for athletes, and create protections for scholarships and roster spots in nonrevenue sports.

It also attempts to put some sanity back into the transfer portal by generally allowing athletes one unrestricted transfer without losing eligibility.

There are parts of that I really like. I’ve never had a problem with college athletes making money. If somebody wants to pay a Georgia quarterback to appear in a commercial or an offensive lineman to promote his business, good for them.

But what we’ve created isn’t really NIL anymore. When players are essentially being recruited from one school to another based on who can assemble the largest financial package, let’s at least admit what we’re watching.

That’s professional sports without contracts, salary caps or collective bargaining. College football needs rules, but the problem is deciding who gets to make them, and that’s where I’m a little uncomfortable with the PCSA.

One of the biggest criticisms is that it provides antitrust protection allowing the NCAA, conferences and schools greater authority to regulate compensation and enforce restrictions.

That deserves scrutiny. For decades, college athletics fought against giving athletes a larger share of the enormous amount of money they helped generate. The courts eventually forced much of the change we’re seeing today.

Now we’re being asked to give some of those same institutions greater legal protection to regulate the new system.

You can understand why athletes and their advocates might be skeptical. Critics such as Senators Chris Murphy and Cory Booker, the NAACP and athlete advocacy organizations argue the legislation places too many restrictions on players while doing comparatively little to restrain spending elsewhere in college athletics.

That’s a legitimate concern, but at the same time, doing nothing isn’t much of a solution either. I don’t believe the current system is sustainable.

Unlimited movement, constantly changing eligibility rulings, recruiting inducements disguised as NIL agreements and different laws from state to state aren’t good for the long-term health of college athletics.

And my biggest concern isn’t Georgia football, Alabama football or Ohio State football.

Those programs will survive. I’m worried about wrestling, swimming, track, tennis, softball and all the other sports that don’t generate millions of dollars in television revenue.

The PCSA specifically attempts to protect scholarships and roster opportunities in those sports, and that may ultimately be one of its most important provisions.

So, count me among those who believe college sports desperately needs guardrails. I just don’t want those guardrails to become handcuffs for the athletes.

The goal shouldn’t be returning college athletics to the old days when everyone made money except the people actually playing the games.

But the answer can’t be pretending the current system is working perfectly either.