{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-discusses-the-importance-of-protecting-college-sports-and-athletes/", "Thune Discusses the Importance of Protecting College Sports and Athletes", "2026-09-16", "2026", "2026-09", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/", "scraper", "Click here to watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor:\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as delivered):\n\n\u201cMr. President, it\u2019s no coincidence that the largest stadium in the United States is a college football stadium.\n\n\u201cCollege athletics has a unique place in America.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s deeply rooted in our communities and families.\n\n\u201cFor student athletes, their sport is an important part of their education.\n\n\u201cWhat they learn from their coaches, teammates, and on the playing field, they carry with them throughout their lives.\n\n\u201cAnd there\u2019s nothing like the opportunity to compete in front of your friends, classmates, parents, and professors.\n\n\u201cWe could say the same about fans in the stands: there\u2019s nothing quite like a college sporting event.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s something very unifying about it.\n\n\u201cGame day brings together people from every walk of life:\n\n\u201cFans who attended that university and often many who didn\u2019t attend, but nevertheless are a part of that school\u2019s community \u2013 all of them united by their love for the school.\n\n\u201cMr. President, anyone who knows me knows I\u2019m a sports fan.\n\n\u201cI spend a lot of time at games when I\u2019m back home in South Dakota.\n\n\u201cAnd whether I\u2019m in a high school gym on a Friday night, at a tailgate on a Saturday morning, at the DakotaDome or the Premier Center \u2013 in a conversation with sports fans, the current state of college athletics is bound to come up.\n\n\u201cMr. President, anyone who follows college sports knows that the last few years have been complex and, at times, chaotic.\n\n\u201cHigher numbers of student athletes are entering the transfer portal, and rosters are being overhauled each season.\n\n\u201cEligibility rules have been stretched \u2013 most notably with former professional players being recruited back to a college campus.\n\n\u201cAnd amid the arms race in revenue-generating sports and among larger institutions, smaller schools and non-revenue sports are increasingly anxious about the future.\n\n\u201cSmaller institutions risk losing stand-out players to schools with bigger budgets.\n\n\u201cAnd last year, it was reported that 41 Olympic sports programs were cut across NCAA Division I athletics programs, affecting over 1,000 student athletes.\n\n\u201cMr. President, this status quo cannot continue.\n\n\u201cAnd to restore stability to the college sports ecosystem, Mr. President, we need national standards \u2013 not a patchwork of state laws.\n\n\u201cThanks to the leadership of Chairman Cruz and Ranking Member Cantwell \u2013 and a number of our colleagues on the Commerce Committee \u2013 we have a bill to do that.\n\n\u201cAnd yesterday, we moved forward to begin debate on that bill: the Protect College Sports Act, which preserves the opportunities that have been available to student athletes for generations and ensures those opportunities can coexist with the new opportunities available to the current generation of college athletes.\n\n\u201cMr. President, the Protect College Sports Act addresses some of the largest issues in college athletics today, and in doing so, it restores stability to the college sports ecosystem.\n\n\u201cAnd that starts with uniform eligibility rules:\n\n\u201cOne transfer without loss of eligibility.\n\n\u201cA maximum five years of playing time starting at college enrollment or on the athlete\u2019s 19th birthday.\n\n\u201cAnd no professional athletes.\n\n\u201cThis bill also bans coaches from switching schools mid-season, ensuring that athletes have the same coach at the end of the season as they did at the start.\n\n\u201cAnd it brings transparency to [athlete] compensation, protects student athletes from bad actors, and safeguards opportunities for women\u2019s and Olympic sports.\n\n\u201cMr. President, this bill has been a work in progress for a number of years.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m grateful for all the hard work that went into getting it right.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve sat down with college athletes in my state to get their perspective.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve talked to coaches and athletic directors.\n\n\u201cAnd I know I\u2019m not the only senator to have done so.\n\n\u201cGetting this type of input is the only way that you get a bill like this.\n\n\u201cA bill that has broad bipartisan support.\n\n\u201cThat has support from more than 30 college athletic conferences.\n\n\u201cHundreds of universities in all 50 states and in Washington, D.C.\n\n\u201cAnd from hundreds of thousands of student athletes \u2013 which is the most important support of all.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I mentioned that I\u2019m a sports fan.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m also part of a sports family.\n\n\u201cMy dad was a Big 10 basketball player in the early 1940s.\n\n\u201cHe got the chance to play point guard for the University of Minnesota, where he was the team MVP.\n\n\u201cHe was the high point man at a game in Madison Square Garden \u2013 quite a journey for a small town kid from South Dakota.\n\n\u201cMy daughter ran cross country and track for Belmont University and was inducted into that school\u2019s Hall of Fame.\n\n\u201cMr. President, the question before us is whether the same opportunities that were available for my dad and for my daughter will be available for the next generation of student athletes.\n\n\u201cWe have a responsibility to them to protect college sports so they can focus on their sport, their education, and their future.\u201d", 1, "2026-09-17T09:52:05Z", "2026-09-17T09:53:00Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-discusses-the-importance-of-protecting-college-sports-and-athletes/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.8489540088921785, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}