Nick Saban warned the whole country that college sports had descended into total chaos.
Senate Democrat Chris Murphy looked at that same chaos and found a completely different villain.
What Murphy blamed it on pushed Ted Cruz to ask him one brutal question.
Protect College Sports Act Gives NCAA Antitrust Exemption and Raises Pay Cap to $49 Million
The Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act 77 to 22 Monday night.
It's the biggest overhaul of college athletics in American history.
It's now headed straight to the House.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas built it with Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington.
Twenty-four conferences signed on.
So did 370 universities, the NFL, the NBA, MLB, the NHL, and the U.S. Olympic Committee.
A wave of HBCUs backed it too.
Trump had been publicly pushing Congress for months to finish the job.
"We have to get that done," he said.
The bill gives the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption.
That lets it finally enforce a real spending cap, a five-year eligibility clock, and a tighter transfer portal.
The current cap sits around $21.5 million per school.
This bill pushes it to roughly $49 million.
Five million of that is walled off specifically for nonrevenue and Olympic sports.
Before the final vote, Sens. Josh Hawley, Jim Banks, and Tommy Tuberville secured a guarantee.
It ensures the bill can never override state laws banning biological men from women's sports.
"Democrats have proven again and again they don't give a rip about protecting women," Tuberville said.
Twenty-two senators still voted no.
Senator Chris Murphy Turns College Sports Bill Debate Into a Race Fight With Ted Cruz
Nick Saban made the case for the bill on national television.
Murphy responded online, arguing "mostly Black athletes now have bargaining power and White coaches hate it."
He didn't walk it back.
Murphy told Fox News Digital "it's a civil rights issue."
This isn't new for him.
Back in 2020, Murphy watched the NFL Draft and called the sport an "immoral" syndicate.
Cruz fired back online this time.
He mocked Murphy for lecturing "sportsball" to a coalition that includes Saban and every major pro league in America.
Then Cruz tagged an AI chatbot and asked the question that mattered most.
Who exactly writes his checks?
The NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus backed Murphy's framing anyway.
Even they couldn't resist dragging in an unrelated grievance.
They tied their opposition to the Supreme Court's ruling on the Voting Rights Act months earlier.
Congress has floated at least eight federal NIL proposals since 2019.
Every single one collapsed before becoming law.
That includes the SCORE Act, which died in this same chamber less than a year ago.
Murphy has pushed his own bill to let college athletes unionize since 2019, and it never gained traction either.
The pattern is impossible to miss once you see it.
When Republicans finally built something that actually works, Murphy didn't offer a fix of his own.
He reached for race instead.
Murphy had a real shot to argue the substance, like the spending cap or the transfer rules.
Instead he leaned on a familiar talking point blaming White coaches for the existence of packed college crowds.
That's not civil rights advocacy.
That's a senator who got outmaneuvered on policy and picked outrage as his consolation prize.
Cruz's response landed precisely because it skipped the bait entirely.
He just asked who benefits from keeping the old system broken.
Nobody on Murphy's side had an answer.
Sources:
- Scott Thompson, "Senate Passes Protect College Sports Act With Decisive Vote," OutKick/Fox News, September 28, 2026.
- Washington Examiner Staff, "Chris Murphy's Toxic Race-Baiting Has No Place in College Sports," Washington Examiner, September 2026.
- Fox Bangor Staff, "Obama's Brother-in-Law Rejects Civil Rights, Racism Argument Against College Sports Overhaul," Fox Bangor, September 2026.
- Twitchy Staff, "People LOVE How Ted Cruz Patted Chris Murphy on the Head for His Cute Little Sportsball Rant," Twitchy, September 8, 2026.
- ESPN Staff, "U.S. Senate Votes 77-22 to Pass Protect College Sports Act," ESPN, September 2026.
- Jim Banks Senate Office, "GOP Senators Look to Prevent College Sports Bill From Allowing Trans Athletes in Women's Sports," Senator Jim Banks Press Release, August 2026.
- Fox News Staff, "Connecticut Sen. Murphy Addresses Student-Athlete Pay Issue During NFL Draft," Fox News, April 2020.
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