埃迪·佩尔斯 参议院花费了四个多月的时间才通过了一项法案，支持者承认该法案远非完美，但这仍然是控制大学体育界失控开支及一系列其他问题的最佳机会。
EDDIE PELLS It took more than four months for the Senate to pass a bill that backers concede is far from perfect, but still the best chance to control runaway spending and a raft of other problems across college sports.
该法案的发起人之一、来自得克萨斯州的共和党参议员特德·克鲁兹希望趁着周一晚间77比22的两党压倒性胜利，促使众议院在四周内返回华盛顿并通过同一法案。如果这种情况发生，克鲁兹提议在今年秋天的一场橄榄球赛前节目中，由唐纳德·特朗普总统签署该法案，以此为这场立法高潮画上句号。
One of the bill’s authors, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wants to parlay the 77-22 bipartisan victory Monday night into the House returning to Washington to pass the same bill in the span of four weeks. If that happens, Cruz proposes capping off the legislative flurry with President Donald Trumpg it into law on a football pre-game show this fall.
克鲁兹在参议院通过《保护大学体育法》后表示：“我认为这对每个人来说都是双赢。”
“I think it would be a win-win for everybody,” Cruz said after the Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act.
不过目前，众议院计划在期中选举之后的那一周才复会，而选举结果可能会改变众议院的观点——此前该院曾多次未能将自身的大学改革法案提交表决。
Currently, though, the House isn’t scheduled to return until the week after the midterm elections, the results of which could change opinions in a chamber that failed repeatedly to bring its own college-reform bill up for a vote.
纽约洋基队总裁、特朗普“修复大学体育圆桌会议”副主席兰迪·莱文说：“我看到很多关于众议院将会发生什么的报道。我认为那些都只是传言。”以下该法案在党派势力均势的众议院中所面临的一些障碍：一些共和党人认为该法案没有为NCAA提供足够的反垄断保护，这是政府越权的典型案例。另一个问题正如众议院多数党党鞭、来自路易斯安那州的共和党人史蒂夫·斯卡利斯今年6月对政客新闻网所说：“众议院要想审议任何议案，就必须防止大学生运动员获得雇员身份。”
“I’ve seen a lot of stories out there about what’s going to happen in the House,” said Randy Levine, the president of the New York Yankees and the vice chair of Trump’s Roundtable on Fixing College Sports. “I think what’s out there is all rumor.”Here are some of the hurdles the bill faces in the closely divided House: Some Republicans feel the bill doesn’t offer enough antitrust protection for the NCAA and that it’s a classic case of government overreach. Another issue, as House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., told Politico in June: “For the House to be able to take anything up, you got to prevent employment status of the student athletes.”
该法案在雇佣问题上保持中立，一些人认为这能解决问题，而另一些人则称这会给学校带来更大的财政压力。莱文表示，将大学球员变成雇员需要对美国劳动法进行大规模重写。
The bill is neutral on the employment matter, which some argue would solve problems and others say would place schools under even more financial stress. Levine says turning college players into employees would require a massive rewrite of American labor laws.
众议院在通过大学体育立法方面的举步维艰已经持续了一年多，其自身提出的、被称为《得分法案》（SCORE Act）的法案最终流产，这充分暴露了这一点。该法案此前被认为对运动员远不够友好。
The House’s struggles in passing college sports legislation have been laid bare for more than a year with the failure of its own bill, known as the SCORE Act, which was considered far less friendly to athletes.
尽管如此，它还是得到了一些民主党人的支持，并被列入5月份众议院的表决日程，直到全国有色人种协进会（NAACP）对该法案表示反对——此前最高法院作出了一项裁决，削弱了《选举权法案》（Voting Rights Act），并为可能有利于共和党的选区重划打开了大门。国会黑人核心会议（Congressional Black Caucus）与NAACP持相同立场，少数党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯（Hakeem Jeffries）公开表示：“如果东南联盟（SEC）的学校支持它，我们就反对它。”
Still, it had a few Democratic supporters and was on the House calendar for a vote in May until the NAACP — responding to a Supreme Court ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act and opened the door to redistricting that could favor Republicans — came out against the bill. The Congressional Black Caucus agreed with the NAACP and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declared: “If the SEC schools are for it, we are against it.”
民主党共同提案人、来自俄勒冈州的珍妮尔·拜纳姆（Janelle Bynum）和来自阿拉巴马州的肖马里·菲格斯（Shomari Figures）迅速撤回了他们的支持。
Quickly, Democratic co-sponsors Janelle Bynum of Oregon and Shomari Figures of Alabama withdrew their support.
东南联盟同样支持参议院的这项法案。该法案被认为对运动员更为友好，但仍为NCAA提供了一些反垄断保护，并将法院已经批准的收入分成上限写入了法律。
The Southeastern Conference also supports the Senate bill, which is viewed as more favorable toward athletes but still provides some antitrust protection for the NCAA and places into law a revenue-sharing cap that has already been approved by the courts.
NAACP主席德里克·约翰逊（Derrick Johnson）于周二发表声明表示反对：“佃农制度已经结束，这项法案只会损害学生运动员的利益，”他说。
NAACP President Derrick Johnson released a statement Tuesday opposing it: “Sharecropping is over, and this bill will only serve to harm student-athletes,” he said.
鉴于共和党内部存在一些阻力，该法案要想获得通过，可能至少需要得到几位民主党人的投票支持。另一个潜在因素可能来自特朗普的施压，他也支持该法案，并将解决大学体育领域的问题作为一项优先任务。
Given the pockets of Republican resistance, the bill would likely need at least a few Democratic votes to pass. Another possible factor could be pressure from Trump, who also supports the bill and has made solving the problems in college sports a priority.
该法案的关键要素之一是它为NCAA提供的诉讼保护。NCAA此前已屡次遭到起诉，并在律师费上花费了数百万美元。在过去的一个月里，路易斯安那州立大学（LSU）试图招募两名曾参加过NFL训练营的橄榄球运动员，由此引发了一场诉讼，甚至盖过了新赛季开幕的风头。
Among the key elements in the bill are the lawsuit protections it offers to the NCAA, which has been sued repeatedly and spent millions on attorneys. Over the past month, an attempt by LSU to land two football players who had spent time in NFL training camps led to litigation that overshadowed the start of the season.
目前正在进行的大多数诉讼——其中许多涉及NCAA关于允许运动员在五年内拥有五个赛季资格的新规定——将不会受到该立法的影响。
Lawsuits currently in play — many of them over the NCAA’s new rule allowing athletes five seasons of eligibility over five years — would not be impacted by the legislation.
该法案还将提高学校允许与运动员分享的收入金额，从目前的 2,150 万美元增加到 4,880 万美元。这一增加得益于新设立的“留存资金池”——该资金池专门用于留住现有的运动员。
The bill would also increase the amount of revenue schools are allowed to share with athletes from $21.5 million to $48.8 million thanks to a new “retention pool” that would devote the new money to keeping current players.
法案的起草者们希望，这笔新增资金能够将那些长期以来被视为导致大学体育支出失控的第三方NIL（运动员与学校相关实体之间的营销协议）交易纳入支出上限的管控范围内。
Those who crafted the bill hope that new pool of money shifts third-party NIL — marketing deals between athletes and entities related to the schools that have long been seen as the key culprit in runaway spending — to under that spending cap.
“再也不能通过转移多媒体版权收入或赞助费用等方式来规避支出上限了，”帮助起草该法案的德克萨斯理工大学董事会主席科迪·坎贝尔（Cody Campbell）表示。
“It’s no longer this shell game where we’re moving multimedia-rights money or shoe-dollar money around ... and playing these cap-circumvention games,” said Cody Campbell, the chairman of the Texas Tech board of regents who helped craft the bill.
据布克（Booker）在接受 CBS Sports 采访时所说，如果该法案在 1 月 1 日之前未能生效，而民主党人控制了众议院，那么民主党人将有机会制定一份能够弥补该法案诸多缺陷的新法案。与此同时，各大学体育联盟已经讨论了自我治理模式数月之久；这种模式下的规则可以由各联盟自行执行，无需依赖国会立法，从而避免面临反垄断诉讼的风险。
According to a Booker interview with CBS Sports, if the bill doesn’t become law before Jan. 1 and Democrats win the House,it would give them “a chance to really author a bill that corrects for a lot of the failings in this bill.”In the meantime, the conferences have been talking about a self-governance model for months, a plan with rules they could enforce that wouldn’t be dependent on Congress passing a law and somehow avoid being subject to antitrust challenges.
提出的方案之一是：即使没有相关法律支持，各联盟也可以自行设定更高的收入分享上限。不过，这一过程可能需要数月时间来修改目前由众议院制定的、金额为 28 亿美元的支出上限相关协议。
Among the ideas floated would be for them to independently adopt the higher revenue-share cap, though without a law to back it, that would involve what would likely be a monthslong process of altering the $2.8 billion House settlement that set the initial terms of the cap.
各联盟还可以自行制定关于运动员转会的相关规定——这些规定很可能会类似于 NCAA 已经通过的“五对五”转会规则（即每所学校在转会中只能获得五名新运动员的权益）。
The conferences could also look at establishing their own rules about transfers — rules that would likely look like the five-for-five regulation the NCAA has already passed.
然而，各联盟无法阻止所有针对大学体育的诉讼；几十年来，尤其是最近几年，正是这些诉讼推动了大学体育领域的诸多变革。反对该法案的人士不愿限制运动员可以提起诉讼的范畴，而支持者则认为，这种诉讼保护机制有助于 NCAA、各联盟及其所属学校为未来制定发展规划。
What the conferences can’t do is stop all the lawsuits, which have driven most of the change in college sports for decades and certainly recently. Those who oppose the bill are reluctant to limit what players can sue over, while backers say the lawsuit protection affords the NCAA, the conferences and their schools to plan for the future.
坎贝尔表示：“对我来说，太疯狂了，都这个时候了我们还在讨论这个，他们本应都很清楚，他们在执行（基于联盟的）规则时，将会面临与NCAA相同的法律困境。反垄断法依然存在，他们没有办法绕过它。”
“It’s insane to me that, at this point, we’re still having this conversation when they all should know that they’re going to have the same legal difficulties in enforcing (conference-based) rules that the NCAA does,” Campbell said. “The antitrust law is still there, and they don’t have a way around it.”
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Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here , visit the Top 25 here and see AP’s full college football coverage here