MORGANTOWN — West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin spoke with reporters on a Zoom call Wednesday about the Protecting Athletes, Schools and Sports (PASS) Act he introduced Tuesday.
Manchin explained how the act, which he introduced with Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) was developed and what its goals are.
“It’ll protect student-athletes, maintains fair competition and compensation, we strengthen transparency and preserve the time-honored tradition of college sports,” Manchin said. “This legislation will finally provide clarity and create a national uniform standard for name, image and likeness.”
Student-athletes were permitted to profit off their name, image and likeness (NIL) stemming from a 2021 Supreme Court decision in NCAA v. Alston. At the time, the NCAA established few rules surrounding NIL, saying it would wait for federal regulation.
“The lack of clear rules created a race to the bottom with some athletes receiving millions of dollars as an inducement to play while others have been exploited and lost scholarships,” Manchin said. “That’s why I decided to provide clarity on NIL compensation.”
Manchin said he and Tuberville met with university presidents, athletic directors and student-athlete groups to form an understanding of how NIL has impacted college athletics.
“We tried to engage all the stakeholders to create a better understanding of what the challenges were and what we felt to save college sports as we know it and as we go down to Title IX and non-revenue sports that might now have a chance of surviving if we don’t make some changes and put some guardrails on,” he said.
If passed, the act will create a national standard for NIL deals and make the details of such deals public within 30 days of their signing. It will also require collectives to be affiliated with schools and agents to register with a governing body.
“It reigns in collectives and boosters which have openly paid athletes millions of dollars to lure them to their schools,” Manchin said. “While others have broken promises these athletes that don’t have enough money to fulfill their outlandish promises. They just made promises that had no backing to them at all.”
The most high-profile NIL controversy came in January when four-star quarterback commit Jaden Rashada had to request a release from the University of Florida after being misled by a collective. The Gator Collective, an independent group, promised Rashada more than $13 million over four years, a deal that ultimately fell through as Rashada was granted his release from UF and enrolled elsewhere.
“Right now, collectives could be any group of people passing themselves off of being able to get X amount of dollars,” Manchin said. “We’re talking about multi-millions of dollars offered without any intention to pay.”
While Manchin said he wants to protect student-athletes from being scammed, he also wants to lessen the impact money has on recruiting and college sports as a whole.
“You, as an outstanding athlete, shouldn’t be able to go to one school and say ‘I’ll go but this school offered me X amount of dollars and if you offer me X more, I’ll come to you,’” Manchin explained. “That is not what it’s about. If you have these types of talents, go out and get a lawyer and market your goods and that’s fine. You’re just not going to use (other schools) as hostages in negotiating with the schools.”
The PASS Act also aims to limit the impact of the transfer portal in college athletics. The portal, introduced around the same time as NIL, allowed student-athletes to transfer one-time penalty-free. The combination of the portal and NIL quickly created the appearance that talented athletes would enter the portal and then sell their talents off to the highest bidder.
The PASS Act would require student-athletes to complete three years of academic eligibility before being able to transfer penalty-free.
“First of all, student-athletes are strictly what it says, a student athlete,” Manchin said, emphasizing the role of education. “These are young men and women coming into collegiate sports. There has to be nurturing and building of their talents and you can’t do that…We also know that transfers have very low graduation rates. Transferring here and there and everywhere else was a great concern all of us had that we weren’t seeing any education obtainment. That’s really what this whole experience is about.”
The PASS Act also includes protections for student-athletes, including guaranteeing four-year scholarships.
“So if they come in and recruit to Division-I, they’re going to commit to paying for four years of education,” Manchin said. “We felt at least the student could commit to three years before they transferred out. That was another reason the portal was tightened up.”
The act would also provide student-athletes with eight years of healthcare to deal with sports-related injuries upon graduation from a four-year university.
“Your chances of sustaining an injury are quite high at that level and we’ve got to make sure you have the proper medical care,” Manchin said. “We figured that if we went out eight years on that would give you the proper care that you need.”
In all, Manchin stressed the act is meant to protect student-athletes while not allowing college athletics to turn into a professional venture.
“It strikes a balance, I believe, between protecting the rights of student-athletes and maintaining the integrity of college sports,” he said. “I know how important sports are to gaining valuable life skills through these types of opportunities. It opens doors of opportunity that you don’t see when you’re 17, 18, 19 years of age that you truly come to appreciate in your 30s, 40s and beyond.”
One thing the act does not address is student-athlete compensation directly from institutions. Student-athletes are currently not considered university employees and the act would not change that.
“In 1965 you get a full scholarship to WVU and I got $30 a month,” said Manchin, a college quarterback with the Mountaineers. “They called that “laundry money.” We thought that was great because $30 went a long way in 1965. We have not gotten into that conversation, we might later on, but we have not gotten into that.”
Manchin said he believes the PASS Act is a commonsense act with bipartisan support that could move quickly through the legislative process.
“I think in a very short period of time, probably weeks, you’ll be hearing of some very high-end meetings happening in Washington,’ he said. “I don’t know where that’s going to go, but we’re going to find out and see if there’s going to be a national push for something that makes this much sense. Everyone is concerned.”
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