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SEC presidents push back against pooling media rights in Senate's 'Protect College Sports Act'

Byington mugby: Alex Byington05/28/26_AlexByington

The SEC’s 16 presidents and chancellors pushed back on the idea of pooling of media rights included in the Senate’s bipartisan “Protect College Sports Act” released Wednesday in a joint statement Thursday. The “Protect College Sports Act” sponsored by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) establishes the opportunity for FBS conferences to collectively pool their media rights if 75% of the 138 FBS schools agree to do so.

“The Southeastern Conference recognizes and appreciated the many ongoing discussions regarding potential system-wide improvements to ensure the future success of college athletics,” the SEC statement began. “The SEC has been intentional, through years of thoughtful planning and decision-making, in strategically positioning itself for future media negotiations. The conference must retain the ability to act in the best interests of its membership. A such, the SEC does not support assigning its media rights to a third party and remains firmly committed to independently conducting its media negotiations.”

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This isn’t the first time the SEC has pushed back against pooling media rights proposals. In February, the SEC and Big Ten jointly authored an eight-page memo distributed through the halls of Congress expressing their opposition to amending the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 as proposed by Texas Tech billionaire booster Cody Campbell’s nonprofit Saving College Sports initiative.

That joint Big Ten-SEC memo cites a previous attempt at centralized media rights created by the failed College Football Association (CFA) in 1984 that was “created to pool the football rights of the largest 64 Division I football schools, but produced less revenue than the previous system. Schools and conferences left the CFA because they generated MORE revenue at the conference level than as part of the CFA pool.”

The 111-page bipartisan “Protect College Sports Act,” which has yet to be formally introduced or put up for a vote in the Senate, has already received serious pushback from both sides of the national debate. Among the most controversial proposals in the act are restrictions against head coaches leaving one school for another while their team is still in the midst of an ongoing season, referred to as the “Lane Kiffin rule,” as well as potential antitrust protections that would allow the NCAA to enforce restrictions around transfers, eligibility and a compensation cap for student-athletes but not head coaches. It also codifies many of the rules established by last Summer’s House v. NCAA settlement and provides protection for the College Sports Commission to enforce those rules without legal challenges.

There are also specific restrictions that seem to target the SEC and Big Ten, including restrictions that prevent conferences that earn more than $1 billion in annual revenue from expanding beyond its current membership and potentially establishing “super leagues.” The Big Ten and SEC were the only two NCAA conferences with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion during fiscal year 2025.

— On3’s Pete Nakos contributed to this report.