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Late. For years now, Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has been trying to get more regulations around name, image and likeness (NIL) deals in college sports, saying back in 2023 that the landscape was “at risk.”
Now, in 2025, Cruz sees college football specifically as a “disaster.”
Cruz responded to a post on X that called the “current college football landscape … unsustainable.”
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Late. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, arrives for a hearing at the US Capitol on December 17, 2025 in Washington, DC. The hearing of the Federal Aviation Administration with the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Subcommittee on Aviation, Space and Innovation focused on evaluating progress and ensuring results. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
The post pointed out that the Iowa State Cyclones, who just lost longtime head coach Matt Campbell to the vacant Penn State Nittany Lions job, have just 17 players left on their roster for next season. Among those players, only one was a starter.
Essentially, the Cyclones will have to field an entirely new roster and team and hope they can make it into 2026.
SCORE ACT RECEIVES SUPPORT FROM OVER 20 CONSERVATIVE GROUPS AS ZERO REFORM IS FIGHTED
Cruz criticized the fact that the NCAA allows this.
“An absolute crisis,” he wrote on X. “Congress MUST act. For months I have been working night and day to try to bring Republicans and Democrats together to save college sports.
“If we fail to do that, it will be an utter tragedy. And it’s happening right before our eyes.”
Cruz introduced a bill in 2023, two years after the NIL was born, hoping that tighter rules would help college sports across the country. Instead, we’ve seen programs pay for top players through NIL deals, while the transfer portal has allowed players to move from school to school every year.
Cruz is one of the top lawmakers in support of the Student Compensation and Opportunity Through Rights and Endorsements (SCORE) Act, which would grant the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption in hopes of protecting the organization from potential lawsuits over eligibility rules and would prohibit athletes from becoming employees of their schools.”
FILE – Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, on February 20, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Maryland. (Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo)
“The SCORE Act is the free market, individual liberty, limited government solution to the ‘name, image and likeness (NIL)’ problem in college athletics,” said a letter to House Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., earlier this month.
The groups advocating for the SCORE Act said the bill is “the common sense” way to establish rules and prevent confusing state laws in the NIL era.
“HR 4312 prohibits trial lawyers from suing under federal or state antitrust laws. It also provides that athletes who receive NIL compensation need not be employees of those universities, protecting them from mandatory unionization. This means that student-athletes can be treated as small business owners, not unionized workers,” the letter added.
The conservative groups framed the SCORE Act as a better plan than the Student Athlete Fairness and Enforcement (SAFE) Act, which has been supported mostly by Democrats. The SCORE Act has at least garnered some bipartisan support in the House.
Late. Ted Cruz (R-TX) holds a press conference with families who lost loved ones in the January 29, 2025 DCA plane crash on December 15, 2025 at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. The two-part press conference addressed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) language, which changes military airspace policy. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
The SCORE Act also calls for schools to share revenue under the terms of the House settlement at 22% “if such rules provide that such pool limit is AT LEAST 22 percent of the average annual college sports revenue of the 70 highest-grossing schools.”
Finally, the SCORE Act prohibits schools from using tuition fees to fund NIL payments.
