Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater, chief of the DOJ’s antitrust division, announced on Thursday she is stepping down—a move that could increase the odds of a settlement between the government and Live Nation and invite new thinking on antitrust enforcement and athletes’ rights in college sports at a pivotal time.
If you watched a minute of college football this fall, you saw the ads. A voice-over darkly warns that, without congressional action, college sports face an existential crisis. NIL is forcing schools to cut women’s sports and Olympic programs. The very fabric of amateur athletics is unraveling. The solution, viewers are told, is the SCORE Act. It would solve the crisis, though it’s not really explained how.
The landscape of college athletics is entering uncharted territory. On June 6, 2025, final approval of the $2.8 billion House v. NCAA settlement resolved three major antitrust lawsuits and authorized direct revenue sharing between Division 1 schools and their athletes. This development represents a major departure from the NCAA’s longstanding model of amateurism and carries significant implications for the legal status of student-athletes.
There are three proposals in front of Congress, will any of them progress and would they even help maintain the NCAA’s relevance?
The NCAA insists that while Title IX requires financial aid and athletic scholarships be gender-balanced, it does not mandate “all student-athlete benefits” be gender-balanced.
“There’s no mood for consolidating more money in Power Two conferences at the expense of all the other conferences and small to mid-size schools because that’s just going to accelerate the trend of cutting Olympic or women’s sports,” said Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), a former Division I volleyball player who sits on the committee of jurisdiction.
“The SCORE Act (college sports) is well-intended but falls short and is not ready for prime time. I will vote no,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).
Sport Venture Group Launches nation.enterprises inc., Unifying Youth to Collegiate Olympic Sport Pathways.
America’s dominance in the Olympics may be impacted by a shakeup in college sports funding, with schools potentially cutting programs.
Roughly 41 Olympic sports programs have been cut across NCAA Division I, affecting at least 1,000 student-athletes after the settlement was announced by the NCAA in May 2024, said Sam Seemes, CEO of the US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.