NCAA chief: College sports bill means less ‘money on lawyers,' more on athletics

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NCAA President Charlie Baker is feeling “pretty good” about the prospects for Senate passage of bipartisan college sports legislation. As for whether it will get to President Donald Trump’s desk this year — well, one step at a time.
“One of the things that you know I learned from my 16 years in state government is: This is a one-bite-at-a-time type business,” Baker told Semafor in an interview this week, adding that “I’m hopeful that if the Senate can get something done here, that the House will find a way to make this part of what they deal with” after the election.
It’s a good moment for an experienced politician to lead the NCAA, whose very future is on the line in Congress one way or another. A former moderate GOP governor of Massachusetts, Baker is guiding his organization to the precipice of a vote that could stabilize college sports after long seasons of turbulence in the $14 billion-plus economy surrounding it.
Baker’s been a visible presence on Capitol Hill since taking the reins at the NCAA in 2023, overseeing a sprawling network of sports from football and basketball to wrestling and volleyball. He’s spurred his share of big change, moving to provide healthcare benefits for injured athletes after they leave school, implement a school-based revenue sharing model, and place limits on the transfer portal.
He’s also working to establish a massive portal database that will allow athletes to research where their fellow competitors transferred to — and how it worked out for them to offer “a little more clarity about what’s real and what’s not, so the kids can make better decisions,” he said.
But there are limits to how far Baker’s NCAA can go without Congress. That’s where the Senate bill comes in, with prohibitions on pro athletes playing college sports, firm limits on eligibility and transfers, restrictions on some conference realignment, and a higher cap on schools’ spending to pay and retain athletes.
“We do have some very fundamental issues that would make a big difference, for certainty purposes around rules and around eligibility and around money and around transfers,” Baker said. “Those things would help sort of settle down a lot of the uncertainty that exists now.”
Just a few minutes before his interview with Semafor, a court found that former Purdue men’s basketball player Trey Kaufman-Renn could pursue another year of eligibility after four years on the Boilermakers. It was the latest confusing turn in the ongoing saga over who can play college sports and who can’t, a debate that’s tying up the courts and making popular sports incredibly confusing to fans and players alike.
Baker also said it’s pulling resources away from what the NCAA actually wants to focus on, too.
“We are spending more money on championships than we’ve ever spent before. We have more people coming to them than we’ve ever had before. That’s a really great story,” Baker said. “But we’re all spending a lot of money on lawyers, and I think all of us would rather spend that money on something else.”
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Baker has a deep history in government. After leading two major state government agencies in the 1990s, he served for eight as Massachusetts governor under three presidents: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden.
Now he’s working in tandem with Republicans whose politics sharply diverge from his strand of New England pragmatism, including both Trump and Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Baker praised both of them in an interview, as well as Democrats like Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Chris Coons of Delaware who are working on the bill.
Baker said Trump has made it possible to get where they are, though they haven’t had a specific conversation about the legislation.
“His voice and the participation of a lot of the folks in his administration has made a big difference. There’s no question about that,” Baker said.
Senate Republicans may face a few defections on the college sports bill in the next few days. But the real question mark is Democrats, who could filibuster it outright.
Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut are among those lawmakers advocating against the bill behind the scenes.
Murphy told Semafor recently that he doesn’t “buy the argument that this is a demonstrably better version of the SCORE Act,” a House bill that Democrats turned on last year because it stifled unionization among athletes. The Senate bill is silent on that topic.
Baker said the bill includes some items he doesn’t necessarily agree with and omits others he wants, declining to share further specifics. But he portrayed it as critical simplification for a college athletics world that has grown more complex by the year, thanks in part to ad hoc legal challenges.
It’s the kind of approach that got him reelected as a Republican in Massachusetts — and could help him put this legislation over the top in a narrowly divided Senate right before the election.
“Does this make things better or worse? And I think it’s very hard to argue that this bill doesn’t make things better,” Baker said.
Room for Disagreement
Several backers of the bill have said they don’t see how college sports can survive without congressional intervention. Baker wouldn’t address what might happen if this Congress can’t pass the bill.
“Well, why don’t we talk about that, Burgess, at the end of the year, okay? Because for now, I’m really focused on trying to get it passed,” Baker said.
Burgess’s view
Baker’s done as much as he can to keep the NCAA relevant and implement changes that integrate paid athletes and new benefits, but college sports officials really need a bill right now to help avoid a bigger blow to a durable American institution — and this is the only game in town.
The effect of inaction is especially acute among committed fans, as shown by Knight Foundation polling last year. While 36% of respondents overall said they favored federal laws on college sports, that number jumped to 54% among self-described fans.
So much work has gone into getting bipartisan backing and support from the big power conferences that falling short would be a huge setback for the organization.

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