Canzano: Eyes wide open on college sports wrangling
Screenshot of an amendment provides clarity.
The goal of lawmakers is to stop the SEC and Big Ten from running off with it all. Or at least that’s one of the missions. Shockingly, not everything being tweeted out about the Protect College Sports Act is fully accurate or even understood.
I reached Congressman Mike Baumgartner on Thursday to ask what in the name of the founding fathers is happening with the bill being designed to save the world of college athletics.
An anti-expansion provision had reportedly been added to the bill this week. If true, it would freeze conference membership. Not just in the Big Ten and SEC, as was proposed originally, but now to any league earning greater than $700 million in revenue. That threshold would lock down the ACC and Big 12 as well, effectively freezing the Power Four in place.
No room for Washington State and Oregon State? No options for Boise State, UNLV, Tulane, Memphis, and San Diego State? And Stanford and Cal stuck in the ACC?
What gives?
Is any of it true?
“My interests are in schools such as Washington State and Oregon State,” Baumgartner told me. “I don’t want a second NFL.”
A few minutes later, Baumgartner sent me a screenshot of one new amendment to the proposed legislation (see it below). Right there in black and white, under the “PROHIBITION ON CERTAIN CONFERENCE MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS” heading in Section 7 was the language in question.