The U.S. Senate passed a college sports bill Monday, Sept. 28, setting new limits on athlete payments and transfers that will reshape how Villanova builds its rosters.
The Protect College Sports Act passed 77-22, as first reported by the Associated Press via Main Line Media News. The bipartisan legislation would cap school-to-athlete revenue sharing at $21.5 million, restrict players to one free transfer over five years and grant the NCAA new antitrust protections to enforce the rules.
The bill now heads to the House. Its path there is uncertain.
House lawmakers will not return to Washington until mid-November, after the elections, and Congress must act before the end of 2026 or start over in the next session. Some House Republicans have insisted on language explicitly stating athletes are not employees, a provision the Senate version omits.
Transfer rules and Villanova's portal strategy
The transfer restriction carries particular weight on the Main Line. Villanova men's basketball coach Kevin Willard has leaned heavily on the transfer portal to rebuild his roster each offseason, adding Ohio State's Devin Royal and Oregon's Kwame Evans Jr. for the 2026-27 season after a 24-9 campaign that ended in the NCAA Tournament's round of 64.
Willard described the annual portal churn in a Big East summer check-in interview on July 30. He said he loves the challenge of roster-building each year but acknowledged the grind, saying he's "not sure I love the timeframe and doing it every year."
Under the bill, players who have already used their one free transfer would have to sit out a year before competing at a new school. That could shrink the pool of experienced transfers available to programs like Villanova that rely on the portal to stay competitive in the Big East.
The bill would also cap player eligibility at five years total and codify a 2025 court settlement that allowed schools to pay athletes directly. Schools could spend up to an additional $27.5 million through a retention fund beyond the base revenue-sharing cap.
Debate on the Senate floor
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, who negotiated the bill with the committee's ranking member, Sen. Maria Cantwell, said the legislation was a necessary federal intervention. "It would be nice if college sports could somehow magically fix itself, but this is a matter of law, federal law, and only Congress can fix it," Cruz said.
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut opposed the bill, saying it "places a cap on the students' cut of the revenues, but there are no caps on coaches' salaries or on the size of donations to athletic programs."
Groups including the NAACP and AFL-CIO also opposed the legislation, in part because it does not address whether athletes should be classified as employees with collective bargaining rights.
The House's next move will determine whether the new rules take effect or whether college sports continues under the current patchwork of court settlements and state laws.
