The Protect College Sports Act Shows How Much the GOP Doesn't Care About Limited Government Anymore

Nothing says “small government” like having politicians run college sports.

Hello and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! If you're on a football field this week, keep an eye out for pickup trucks.

It could be a landmark in college sports history if major legislation passes the Senate this week. We'll talk about that and much more, plus some thoughts on Ted Lasso season four and the current state of Formula 1.

Locker Room Links

• Alexander Ovechkin appeared in a campaign video for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's political party.
• Football suffered a huge drop in popularity, as measured by the percentage of Americans who say it's their favorite sport to watch. Soccer surged and is now the second-most popular among the 35–54 age range.
• Even with higher tax revenue, German cities lost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars euros on costs for hosting the EURO 2024 soccer tournament.
• You can calculate jock taxes paid by any NFL player in this brand new calculator—you and even move players to different teams to find out if they'd owe more or less.
• Soccer club Paris Saint-Germain must pay a $3 million fine because of a French gender equality wage law. All of the team's top 10 highest earners are, unsurprisingly, players on the club's men's soccer team.
• All football games in Big Ten venues will now give broadcasters access to audio and video of replay reviews. (Yes, I am taking full credit for this.)
• Elsewhere in Reason: "Is AI Really an Existential Threat?" The Reason Roundtable gang discusses.
• America is winning the global culture war with the awesomeness of sports.
  

  Many of them may very well be American citizens. Why are people assuming they aren't?

  And even if many are foreign students, isn't assimilation exactly what the American melting pot is supposed to be about?

  This makes me sad for so many reasons, but especially for my American… https://t.co/2ostPqK3kR

  — Beverly Hallberg (@BeverlyHallberg) September 13, 2026

Why Are Republicans Backing a Big-Government Sports Bill?

ESPN's College GameDay is not meant to be watched intently and without distraction. It's what you throw on as you fold into your couch cushions on a cold Saturday morning to look at your phone for two hours, or as you stand over a stove making overcooked scrambled eggs to nurse your hangover. You perk up and watch when some pimply kid from Iowa tries to make a field goal and win a jillion dollars of Pat McAfee's loudly earned money, or when the celebrity picker shares a prophecy for the day's MACtion.

So when a morning full of distracted college football fans looked up at some point and saw Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) on their TV for 10 minutes, they probably thought, "What the hell is going on here?"

Cruz was there to root for Texas, get booed continuously, and make the case for the Protect College Sports Act, a bill to overhaul the NCAA and college sports. The bill will get a Senate vote this week if it has enough support to pass. (It would still need to pass the House before the end of the year, but after this week the House is out until after the midterm elections.)

ESPN had Ted Cruz on 'College GameDay' in a conversation with Rece Davis for nearly 10 minutes.

Cruz was heavily booed by the crowd -- and heard "Ted, you suck!" chants -- in Austin. pic.twitter.com/npQesiYMsG

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 12, 2026

The bill is sponsored by Cruz, three other Republicans, and four Democrats. Democrats backing a big-government bill that decides how college sports ought to be run is largely unsurprising. But Republicans backing the bill show that the GOP has little to no semblance of a party that's interested in limiting the size and scope of government anymore.

The backers of the bill believe politicians, not the NCAA, should decide how many transfers are allowed. They think politicians, not conferences, should set a compensation cap on how much schools can pay athletes. They think politicians, not athletes and businesses, should get to decide what is a legitimate private contract. They think politicians, not the colleges, should decide how many schools are in the Big Ten and SEC. They think politicians, not coaches, should decide when a coach is allowed to leave a job (thanks for nothing, Lane Kiffin). They think politicians, not athletes or agents, should get to decide what agent fees are. They think politicians should empower medical personnel, not athletes or coaches, to have "autonomous, unchallengeable" power to decide if an athlete plays or sits. They even think politicians, not the NFL or broadcasters, should get to decide when professional football games are on TV. They think politicians should have a say in the length of the college football season.

The bill is not entirely bad, but the good parts are mainly codifying things that were already happening anyway, like the right to hire an agent and receive name, image and likeness (NIL) payments. It would be one thing if the law granted the NCAA, conferences, and schools an antitrust exemption to then set their own rules as they see fit—instead, the politicians writing the law want to play commissioner and set the rules themselves.

We are told that college sports must be "saved" when they seem to be more popular than ever, and when fans and boosters are more willing than ever to part ways with their money to support their team. Many schools are still losing money on athletics anyway—they should either spend less, or be prepared to lose whatever amount they feel is necessary for the marketing boost that sports provide. Oddly, the push to regulate college sports from the outside comes when the sport has shown it can actually regulate itself quite well when it wants to, as shown by the successful effort to shame and threaten LSU into giving up on fielding football players who previously practiced with NFL teams.

It would be nice to have a major political party interested in safeguarding liberty and limiting government intrusion on our lives, or at least one that recognizes regulating college sports is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind as the proper role of government when they wrote the Constitution. The Republican Party as recently as 15 years ago had at least a surface-level interest in these things. Instead, the voters who once backed Republicans to push back on big government are watching GOP politicians today and saying, "What the hell is going on here?"

Defying Expectations, Ted Lasso Is Great Again

Since a bunch of my recent thoughts on sports TV shows and movies have been "I guess it's fine if you have nothing better to watch," I am happy to share that season four of Ted Lasso is quite delightful.

Given the three-year gap between seasons three and four, it feels more like a reboot than a continuation—but the good kind of reboot that actually builds on the show's foundation instead of just rehashing the past for easy laughs and fan service. Ted takes over as coach of AFC Richmond's women's team, and club leadership (Rebecca, Higgins, and Keeley) deal with the very real financial headwinds facing a women's soccer team without hitting viewers over the head with complaints about sexism. There's a great mix of old friends and new people.

We're now six of 10 episodes in, and most of the episodes are great. Some don't move the plot forward much but are full of laughs and hijinks. I could go for a slightly faster pace and some deeper character development (the first couple seasons did a great job balancing in-depth character-building episodes with big-picture plot development), but I think more of that will come as the season goes on. There hasn't been much competitive soccer yet, but that seems likely to be a focus of the remaining episodes. The best sports shows and movies don't just get you invested in the characters, but in their competitive success.

With episodes dropping once a week, Ted Lasso is still appointment viewing in my household. Anyone who enjoyed the show's first season, even if they quit during seasons two and three, should pick the show back up.

What's Happening in Formula 1?

Where are my fellow Formula 1 fans at? I don't have time to lay out all my thoughts about the season right now, but email me if you want to chat.

Is Kimi Antonelli going to be the luckiest champion ever? Why was there so much money and hype surrounding a new circuit in Madrid that had fewer on-track overtakes than Monaco? If Charles Leclerc almost made it through the whole race without a pit stop, shouldn't Pirelli have chosen the softest tire combo for the weekend? It feels like the new regulations have led to more early-race battles and excitement, but at the expense of late-race theatrics. Lance Stroll is still an absolute joke. Will poor old Haas or poor young Cadillac manage to score any more points this season? Do you have any conspiracy theories about what really happened to Isack Hadjar's wrist?

Anyway, if you have thoughts about any or all of the above, feel free to email me at [e-mail].

Replay of the Week

I had planned to put the NFL here, but there's nothing quite like a scoop and score touchback followed immediately by a scoop and score. (Honorable mention to an unbelievably clutch putt from 90 feet.)

ODU FUMBLES VT GETS A SCOOP AND SCORE BUT THEY FUMBLE BEFORE THE GOALINE AND ODU RECOVERS

ON THE VERY NEXT PLAY ODU FUMBLES AND VT GETS A SCOOP AND SCORE

Just had to make this combined clip and Video via @TheCW_Sports pic.twitter.com/diKoUDna58

— Sickos Committee (@SickosCommittee) September 12, 2026

That's all for this week. Enjoy watching the real game of the week, Cal Lutheran against Cal State Fullerton in men's water polo.

Comments

[JesseAz (RIP CK)]

NCAA has government anti trust exemptions. They are already in bed with government.

What is with reasons new government benefit no responsibilities takes?

Remove the benefits and they can do what they want.

[But SkyNet is a Private Company]

The problem now is not that it is elected politicians, not conferences, teams, coaches etc deciding, - it is that unelected unaccountable judges are deciding to overturn the rules everyone has agreed by on a whim whenever someone wants to forum shop.

Local judges who are also boosters of schools seeking an advantage issuing nationwide injunctions is in no way "limited government".

We have a real problem with the tyranny of the judiciary

[damikesc]

And NCAA is NOT making many of the new bad decisions. Judges are. If it has to be run by somebody, I'd prefer somebody at least a little accountable.

[JesseAz (RIP CK)]

But judges are sacred arbiter of truth if you listen to reason.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

The backers of the bill believe politicians, not the NCAA, should decide ...

No, they know that (1) they don't want to get into anything serious and contentious when they can palm it off on the President and whine about it, and (2) they have to do something lest the voters think they're doing nothing; the last thing any bureaucrat or politician wants is to look less than busy, because that means they aren't needed any more.

[JFree]

Soccer surged and is now the second-most popular among the 35–54 age range.

This is proof that we need to stop immigration yesterday before that age group starts voting. They probably even call it football. The biggest problem though is that for all age groups the question is about what sports we WATCH. Not about what sports we PLAY.