Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) opened Tuesday’s House Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee hearing on college sports NIL with an upbeat tone, expressing his eagerness to tackle an issue that has so far evaded Congressional action.
“I believe we can reach some consensus this year,” Bilirakis, the subcommittee’s chairman, remarked during the first college sports-related hearing held since Republicans gained full control of Congress in January. The session came just weeks before the House v. NCAA settlement is set for final judicial approval in a hearing next month. Although the GOP controls the gavels, Bilirakis, mindful of his conference’s thin majority, emphasized that any successful bill would require bipartisan support.
Despite the chairman’s good cheer, which he maintained throughout the morning, his hearing offered little hope for swift progress on an issue—and in a political environment—that has only grown more complex in the four years since the NCAA adopted its interim NIL policies.
From the start, Democratic subcommittee members quickly seized on the opportunity to draw parallels between the debate over Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and President Trump’s recent efforts to limit National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding to universities. “Today, If we truly want to address the real crisis affecting our colleges and universities, we should focus on the financial disaster they face, exacerbated by President Trump and his complicit Republican Congress,” said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.).
Other Democrats sought to link NIH cuts directly to college sports reform, arguing that reduced funding was weakening universities’ ability to address various challenges, including those related to their sports programs.
“I think y’all prepared for an NIH meeting instead of NIL,” said Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.). “If we’re sending money to NIH, and the overhead is going to universities and somehow getting to athletics … then we absolutely should be taking a look at this now.”
The witnesses at Tuesday’s hearing included South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer; Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman; former Duke cross country runner Emily Cole; former Abilene Christian football player Anthony Egbo; and former Clemson football player Justin Falcinelli, now with the College Football Players Association.
In his prepared testimony, Beamer warned of intercollegiate end times if Congress failed to act soon.
“Without intervention, college sports will be destroyed by endless litigation and conflicting state laws,” the coach declared, echoing similar cataclysmic testimony given by coaches and athletic administrators in recent years.
Since the NCAA implemented its interim NIL policy in July 2021, Congress has held no less than a dozen hearings and introduced reams of legislation aimed at addressing college athlete compensation. However, despite these ceaseless efforts, only one House bill has advanced out of committee in either chamber—and that legislation ultimately fell well short of passing the House.
As if the issue’s history weren’t daunting enough, Tuesday’s hearing took place during a particularly contentious moment in Washington, marked by a high-stakes Oval Office confrontation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, as well as the administration’s imposition of 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico this week. These developments sent the stock market on a roller-coaster ride Tuesday while sparking Wall Street concerns about a potential global trade war. Meanwhile, House Republicans, with their narrow three-seat majority, are still reportedly far from reaching an agreement to avert a government shutdown by March 14.
In this tense environment, the hearing itself reiterated the deep divisions within Congress on how to address college sports reform. As has become common over the past year, subcommittee Democrats emphasized athlete rights—which include employee protections—while Republicans focused on restoring stability to the system. The hearing also highlighted how even more challenging it has become to legislate on this issue, especially in the wake of the House settlement.
During one exchange, Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), a former Georgetown volleyball player, pressed Whitman, the Illinois AD, on concerns about gender inequities in the settlement’s revenue-sharing model, specifically questioning the disparity in future payments to male and female athletes. Trahan referenced a filing in the case by Barbara Osborne, a sports law professor specializing in Title IX, who argued that the settlement violates federal education statutes by permitting schools to allocate only 10% of future revenue-sharing funds to women.
Whitman, in response, acknowledged that schools are “faced with some really challenging balancing of equities.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) asked Whitman whether athlete revenue-sharing should include performance-based bonuses. Whitman, describing the question as “an interesting one,” said that performance bonuses “have a place” in the model but added that figuring out how to account for them remains a significant challenge.
Falcinelli, the minority’s lone witness, argued that the solution lies in collective bargaining, which would give athletes the opportunity to shape their own futures while also providing schools with the flexibility to negotiate mutually agreeable terms.
While any kind of NIL legislation has proven difficult to pass, Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.), a former video game developer, set an ambitious precedent for forthcoming bills.
“We have an opportunity to create a system where everybody wins,” Obernolte said. “Let’s not mess it up.”
One way for Congress to avoid that fate is to uphold its long-standing tradition of holding NIL hearings without enacting actual legislation. And, true to form, as Tuesday’s hearing drew to a close, a House Judiciary subcommittee unveiled plans to convene a second college sports panel next week.
