OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
8:29 AM – Thursday, December 4, 2025
Leadership within the House of Representatives canceled a vote on a bill that would regulate compensation college student-athletes earn for their name, image and likeness (NIL), despite the bill’s support from conservatives.
Over 20 conservative organizations wrote a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) expressing support for the Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements (SCORE) Act, according to Fox News.
There is uncertainty within the House, however, that Johnson would have the votes to pass the bill, leading to the vote’s cancellation on Wednesday.
Republican Representatives Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), Scott Perry (R-Penn.), and Chip Roy (R-Texas) voted alongside Democrats on Tuesday to block a procedural rule for the SCORE Act and other legislation.
Roy had said on X that he planned to vote against the act on Wednesday’s now-canceled vote.
“The SCORE Act (college sports) is well-intended but falls short and is not ready for prime time. I will vote no. Putting aside the process problems (we should have been able to amend)… there are lots of legitimate concerns and questions,” Roy wrote, listing his concerns in a lengthy post.
Democrats widely expressed disapproval of the bill.
“The SCORE Act was pulled from consideration because it simply didn’t have the votes, a clear sign that Members on both sides saw it for what it was: a gift to the NCAA and Power Two conferences at the expense of athletes,” Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) wrote on X.
“This bill would have imposed new restrictions on athletes while doing nothing to address the real instability in college athletics,” she added. “It ignored the coaching carousel, the erosion of women’s and Olympic sports, and the mounting financial deficits putting small and mid-sized programs and HBCUs at risk. Calling this a solution to the challenges facing college sports was always a stretch, and pulling it from the floor only confirms how unbalanced it was.”
In the letter to the speaker of the House, however, conservative voices argued, “The SCORE Act is the free market, individual liberty, limited government fix to the ‘name, image, and likeness (NIL)’ issue in college athletics.”
The measure would give the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) a limited antitrust exemption to protect it from potential lawsuits over eligibility rules. It would also prohibit athletes from being employed by their schools and prohibit schools from using student fees to fund NIL payments.
“In 2021, the NCAA v. Alston case before the Supreme Court resulted in schools gaining freedom to offer additional education-related benefits to students, which set the stage for an expansion of NIL rights. In the years since, a patchwork of confusing state laws have been enacted, which cry out for a federal solution to create unified NIL rules that are consistent for everyone,” the letter read.
The groups in favor of the SCORE Act said that it is the “common-sense way” to establish rules.
“The Left’s proposed framework to regulate NIL would be a disaster. Known as the ‘SAFE Act,’ it would open the door for trial lawyers to frivolously sue athletic departments and conferences,” the conservative groups said. “It could also require student-athletes to be classified as employees, forcing many of them into unions, using merely the predicate of NIL compensation.”
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