You know your college sports bill is dead when it gets a Lane Kiffin nickname

Hey there,

It’s been a wild week off the field in college athletics. Most of that action was in Washington, D.C., where the SCORE Act fell apart in spectacular fashion. Details on that below, as well as a revenue-sharing update and news about women’s college flag football.

It should be a thrilling Saturday. Even though the Big Ten, SEC and Big 12 championship games could be irrelevant, the matchups are exciting. And then on Sunday, we can all argue about the CFP committee’s final rankings!

— Kyle

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THE BIG 3

The SCORE Act’s slow, strange death

Wednesday was supposed to be a triumphant day for college athletics, as the SCORE Act, a mostly Republican-backed bill, was expected to pass in the House of Representatives. 

All four power conference commissioners traveled to Washington, D.C., for a celebratory press conference. Instead, their millions of dollars in lobbying were set on fire, similar to Brian Kelly, James Franklin and Billy Napier’s coaching contracts.

The vote on SCORE has been cancelled indefinitely, and the assumption on Capitol Hill is that it will never reach the House floor. The bill needed 218 votes to pass, and there are currently 220 Republicans, though not all of them were guaranteed to vote yes. A few Democrats were going to join the Republicans, but not if their votes were required to pass the bill.

A perfect storm of drama unfolded in recent days to doom SCORE: Lane Kiffin’s unceremonious exit from Ole Miss, a groundswell of resistance to the bill itself, the Congressional Black Caucus's opposition and Republican hostility toward Speaker Mike Johnson.    

“The organized labor unions were strongly opposed because it undermined the freedom of athletes to negotiate and took away collective bargaining rights and, of course, the players’ associations across every sports league — led by the NFLPA — because they concluded that it would actually hurt college athletes, not help them,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Thursday. 

“Why would Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise agree to bring the ‘Lane Kiffin Protection Act’ to the floor of the House of Representatives?” Jeffries continued. “Legislation that would do nothing to benefit college athletes and everything to benefit coaches like Lane Kiffin, who got out of town, abandoned his players in the middle of a playoff run to go get a $100 million contract from LSU, the home state of Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise.”

The NCAA and power conferences favored the SCORE Act, which would’ve provided a cap on how much schools could spend on NIL deals, imposed new transfer rules and prevented athletes from being employees of their universities. The bill also would’ve shielded the NCAA, College Sports Commission, conferences and schools from antitrust and state-court lawsuits related to the SCORE Act. 

On Monday, Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) introduced the College Athletics Reform Act, which immediately drew the endorsement of the players’ associations of all the major North American professional sports leagues. Then Texas Republican Chip Roy came out against SCORE, citing the Kiffin circus. Despite the White House’s public approval, momentum against the bill had already coalesced.

Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-Wash.), a staunch opponent of the SCORE Act, then fired off a Hall-of-Fame tweet directed at Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti. 

What happens next? No one knows.

A college sports luxury tax?

Salary caps in professional sports change every season. So it was inevitable that the cap in college sports would change, too. And like their pro brethren, college sports could be entering the luxury cap era. 

According to Ross Dellenger, college sports executives are finalizing plans to increase the revenue-sharing cap by $2.5 million, but there’s an asterisk. 

In 2025-26, schools can distribute $20.5 million to athletes. However, the actual number is more like $18 million, since most power conference schools have added $2.5 million in scholarships. 

Officials are discussing eliminating the provision that reduces the pool when additional scholarship money is added. So they’d be given an additional $2.5 million for revenue-sharing purposes. But schools would owe a penalty tax equal to 20 percent of the amount used, which would go to the College Sports Commission for operational costs. 

Regardless of the outcome of the penalty proposal, the revenue-sharing cap will increase next year. The House settlement terms called for a four percent increase for 2026-27, but that’s only $800,000. That $2.5 million provision would be on top of the $800,000, meaning schools could have as much as $3.3 million in additional revenue-sharing funds next year. 

Does women’s college flag football have a future?

The growth of flag football nationally has been a talking point for several years, as high schools across the country have formed teams. 

A less discussed sport is women’s flag football. But that’s about to change after the New York Jets made a $1 million commitment to the sport. 

Backed by a grant from The Betty Wold Johnson Foundation, named for the mother of Jets owner Woody Johnson, the Eastern College Athletic Conference will begin playing women’s college flag football in February.

The Jets and ECAC Women’s Flag Football League will be a 7-on-7 competition featuring 10 teams. Five more will be added in 2027. The season will run from February through April, with games taking place on campuses. Championship games will be at MetLife Stadium, though the 2026 title game will be at the Jets training center because of a conflict with the World Cup. 

Teams will be made up of female students from each school, and coaches will be hired specifically for flag football. 

ECAC commissioner Dan Coonan has been an innovative thinker, adding esports, equestrian and club hockey. 

This is not the Jets’ first foray into women’s flag football. Back in 2011, the franchise helped launch a league with the New York City’s Public Schools Athletic League. The Jets also have a girls flag football travel team in the U.S. and another league in London. 

The devotion from Jets and the ECAC is another message to the masses that growth in women’s sports and the rise of non-traditional sports isn’t slowing down. The opportunities to be involved in athletics are becoming limitless. And there’s money to be made for interested parties. 

Don’t forget: Flag football is coming to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. You can’t underestimate what being involved in the Olympics or another worldwide event does for a sport, especially when it’s hosted in the U.S. The WNBA arrived after the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. The MLS was formed on the back of the 1994 World Cup in the U.S. Interest in women’s soccer spiked after the 1999 World Cup and Brandi Chastain’s iconic Cup-winning goal. 

With continued concerns about CTE, flag football’s popularity has skyrocketed in recent years. According to the International Federation of American Football, 2.4 million kids under 17 are playing organized flag football in the US.

NIL BLITZ

♦️ Ever wonder how programs lobby the CFP committee? Well, it’s your lucky day. Here’s the answer.

♦️How bad were the preseason AP poll rankings? Really bad.

♦️ The Wall Street Journal has the unbelievable story of Ohio State wide receiver Phillip Bell III, who was a victim of the ugly youth sports black market.

♦️ Several state attorneys general sent a letter to the College Sports Commission and power conference schools condemning the CSC’s participation agreement.

♦️ Michigan State launched a $1 billion capital campaign to elevate facilities, enhance the student-athlete experience and secure MSU’s position as a leader in college sports.

♦️ Colorado projects a — gulp! — $27 million deficit, mostly caused by a raise for Deion Sanders and NIL payments.

♦️ ESPN has a great story on how USC inked the nation’s top recruiting class. (Spoiler: $9 million in NIL contributed to the haul.)

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BATTER UP

Today’s Poll Question:

Last Edition’s Poll Results:

Should there be more enforcement of third-party NIL deals?

• Yes - 88%

• No - 12%