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Why Congress Is Struggling to Tame the ‘Wild West’ of Student-Athlete Pay

Lawmakers want to fix the frenzied name, image and likeness system but with more than seven competing bills, compromise will be hard to come by.

Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy
Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy runs past Washington cornerback Dominique Hampton during the College Football Playoff championship game. Eric Gay/AP Photo

When lawmakers watched Michigan and Washington compete for the college football championship earlier this month, some had much bigger worries than which team would win: They feared the end of college sports as we know it.

College athletes have been able to receive compensation for the use of their names, images and likenesses — NIL, for short — since 2021, a right many members of Congress support and want to affirm in federal law. Three football seasons into this new era, though, a frenzied and lucrative NIL environment has emerged — and Congress appears no closer to consensus on how to regulate it.

“The purchasing of players has set college athletics on an unsustainable path,” said Florida Republican Gus Bilirakis at a House hearing last week, calling the student-athlete industry a “Wild West.”