Let's Save College Sports By Setting Students Up For Success | Senator Bill Cassidy

As Americans filled out and quickly tear up their March Madness brackets this year, the growing influence of money in college sports is hard to ignore. 

People love college sports. Few things bring communities together more.

Student-athletes can break out of poverty thanks to sports scholarships. If you’re a kid from rural Cameron Parish, Louisiana, whose family has never been to college, you can earn a scholarship, get a degree, and achieve the American dream. Parents want that for their children.

But today, that opportunity is at risk. I talk to athletes, coaches, students, parents, and fans who all say the same thing: college sports are a mess. Court decisions, volatile rule changes, and a lack of leadership have created confusion and opened the door to exploitation. 

That is why the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which I chair, held a hearing this week focused on setting student-athletes up for success.

Less than 2 percent of college athletes will play professionally; 98 percent will not. Too many of these students leave school without a diploma and without loyalty to a school. Transferring every year often makes it more difficult to graduate, let alone excel in class. 

Fans arrive at Memorial Stadium on the U.C. Berkeley campus to watch a Cal Bears Football game. (Via Getty Images)

Setting Students Up For Success Is Paramount

Student-athletes deserve a fair share of the revenue they help generate, but they shouldn’t have to navigate chaos to get it. And it's a false choice to say we must choose between them earning nothing and this current system, in which more than 98 percent may lose their opportunity to achieve the American dream.

Our mission is to set students up for success. Not only on the field or in the classroom, but in their careers after college. First, we must bring stability to the system, so students and institutions can navigate without unnecessary burden or costs. We must also preserve the spirit of Title IX to protect female athletes and the pipeline to Olympic competition.

Several of my colleagues have suggested employment and collective bargaining in college athletics as a remedy to the chaos. However, making student-athletes employees enact significant costs on universities, forcing them to choose whether to cut sports, scholarships, or even physical rehabilitation services for injured players. This also threatens smaller, non-revenue-generating sports, like golf, tennis, swimming, and track, many of which provide critical opportunities for women. Cutting these programs denies women opportunities and potentially triggers Title IX violations.

At a HELP Committee roundtable earlier this month, we heard from the President of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, who warned that many of his member institutions simply could not absorb those costs. Classifying student-athletes as employees eliminates teams, athletic departments, and in some cases, entire institutions.

SEC schools would survive, but what about small Louisiana schools like Northwestern State or Grambling State? Their students not only lose out on opportunities to play but might also lose the opportunity to go to college altogether. Congress needs to listen to and support student-athletes at all levels of competition. The future of college sports is in peril. 

College sports are more than just games or championships; they are the heartbeat of communities across the nation, including my own. When student-athletes succeed, the institution, the community, and the entire fan base succeed. 

We have a responsibility to meet the moment, get off the sidelines, and get this right. My committee is focused on finding a solution.