00:00the Protect College Sports Act passed the U.S. Senate 77 to 22. There was a bunch of different
00:08amendments that they were going to add in, Senator, that I was curious, like, did they just do an up
00:13and down vote for which one of those that were going to be a part of that? Because the more
00:17you
00:17put into these things, oftentimes it convolutes it and you're going to get the senators on both
00:22sides. But I was surprised that it was able to pass with that significant of majority.
00:28Yeah, well, the reason it passed with that significant majority is because it got loaded
00:32down with a bunch of stuff. And some of the things that were in it, I wasn't necessarily a fan
00:38of.
00:38Some of the things it didn't get in it, I wish were. But it passed the Senate, so you got
00:43to get
00:43through that point. And now it's off to the House and it will change, I'm sure, significantly over
00:50in the House. And then we'll try to compromise on this before the end of the year. So this was
00:54just
00:55one step in the process. Don't think by passing the Senate that somehow this is a done deal.
00:59It's just one step in the process.
01:01Is it? I've heard that they think there'll be more issues with it in the House than in the Senate.
01:08Is
01:08that something that your understanding is true?
01:11Yeah, I think that, look, there's going to be a lot of pressure to say if we're going to cap
01:18what the overall cap that you can spend on athletes, should we cap other things like individual
01:26coaches' salaries, you know, other things like that that are part of the conversation.
01:32My particular issue that I know I've been working with my friends in the House on
01:35is capping the number of non-American athletes that are taking up these roster spots.
01:42To think about this, we're making every sport, including the Olympic sports, more lucrative
01:49to participate in. There's more money in it for the student-athletes. That's going to encourage
01:54more professional athletes from around the world to come to America to participate and take
02:01these roster spots. I'm not against having the best in the world come here, but I want it
02:08to be capped at 20% of the roster spots. There are some schools that have 100% of their
02:14rosters, including, I'm not going to name the schools, but there are schools in Ohio that
02:19have 80, 90, 100% of their roster spots in certain sports that are student-athletes from
02:26other countries. And we need to save, if Congress is being asked to save college sports, let's
02:33save it for American student-athletes, not for people from other countries. Again, just want
02:38to cap it at 20%, not ban it, but cap it so that student-athletes from Lancaster and Circleville
02:47and all of these places around Ohio that maybe they don't have their specific individual coaches
02:56since they were four years old to help them be great when they're 17 years old. Give some
03:02chances for some of those kids that have some skills but didn't get all that coaching when
03:07they were young. Yeah, I've always been a huge fan of that and a believer in that. And, you know,
03:11listen, we're very welcoming for people to come in here and utilize our great institutions and
03:15as part of the athletic departments that they have. But I've always believed that, you know,
03:20American universities and their sports teams should represent, you know, hopefully a lot of the state
03:24that they are in because a lot of them receive state funding, obviously, on the public side.
03:30Let me share this one stat with you. In the Paris Olympics, 63% of the NCAA athletes participated for
03:38another country. You get that? So most of the NCAA athletes that were participating in the Paris
03:46Olympics were participating on behalf of other countries. And while that's an issue, I'm also
03:52interested in the kid that's never going to get to play in the Olympics or professionally,
03:57that's not getting a roster spot, that could be, you know, the superintendent of your high school
04:03someday, that could be the owner of a small business, giving them the opportunity to build
04:09the character that you get from playing college athletics.
