• U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney denied the NCAA’s motion in the Wisne case. Boise State professor Sam Ehrlich: “Not too surprising -- asking the same judge to essentially reverse herself is always tough. But she gets one last chance to make it as appeal-proof as possible. The real ballgame will be in the Tenth Circuit, and the NCAA has already filed asking for the same relief there.” (link) 
• Senate Republican leaders ran a hotline for the PCSA legislation this morning, per Punchbowl News’ Andrew Desiderio, asking for notifications if Senators wanted to submit an objection to entering into a limited time agreement in relation to the bill. Colorado State FAR Kyle Saunders simplifies: “Translation for the sports world: the cloakroom notified all 100 offices that leadership wants to pass it by unanimous consent, and asked anyone who objects to speak up. … If one senator objects, they're back on the cloture track, which runs past Friday's scheduled recess and into a five-week break.” (link, link) 
• NCAA Chief Legal Officer Scott Bearby on Tuesday released the following statement: “The Tenth Circuit has ordered expedited briefing on our request for a stay pending appeal. The deadline for the class members to file a response to the emergency motion is Friday, August 14. The NCAA's reply brief must be filed no later than Monday, August 17. In the meantime, the Wisne injunction remains in effect. The Division I Cabinet, including its student-athlete members, carefully considered whether to make the age-based eligibility rule apply retroactively, and decided that doing so would not be in the best interest of all current and future college athletes.  We stand behind and will continue to fully defend the membership's decision. The injunction should never have been granted, and we have asked the Tenth Circuit to permanently reverse it.” (link)  
• SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey on Tuesday sent the following message to league members: “Court filings and rulings related to the current NCAA eligibility landscape remain highly dynamic. As these various court proceedings continue, institutions should operate under existing NCAA rules, interpretations, and applicable Conference rules unless and until otherwise advised by the NCAA, the Conference, or a court order. Recent court rulings should not be interpreted as creating broader eligibility relief beyond the scope of the applicable orders. In addition, SEC eligibility rules, including those relating to intraconference transfers, remain in effect until fully or individually waived, or the rule is changed. If your institution is presented with a fact-specific eligibility question, please coordinate with your compliance office and Conference staff before acting or making commitments based on an assumption regarding an individual's eligibility. We are actively evaluating these issues and monitoring developments, including ongoing court proceedings and any appeals. We will provide additional information as circumstances warrant. Please feel free to reach out directly to Conference staff or me with questions.” (link) 
• Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval indicated the university will prioritize alternative revenue streams over additional student fee hikes to fund its transition to the Pac-12, despite the athletic department trailing future conference peers in institutional support. The Fresno Bee’s Robert Kuwada notes the school previously instituted a $495 increase to the instructionally-related activities fee—pushing the annual total to $759—which currently directs 69.7% of the generated revenue to athletics. The adjustment boosts the department's student fee revenue from $4.3M in 2025 to a projected $9.3M in 2026, though Kuwada points out that figure still lags behind San Diego State, which recently phased in a $10M increase to supplement the $16.3M it collected from students last year. (link) 
• Grand Canyon AD Jamie Boggs argues on X that the current NIL environment fails to reflect a true free market as the industry operates in an environment of constant legal uncertainty with lawsuits, inconsistent state laws and changing rules causing chaos instead of a functioning marketplace. Boggs adds: “That uncertainty has created opportunities for attorneys, agents, and others whose financial incentives rely on continuing litigation and escalating an arms race rather than creating long-term stability for student-athletes or higher education. Why are athletes who command substantial NIL packages earning significantly less in the G League or established professional leagues overseas, in mature professional markets? If this is capitalism at work, should taxpayers be asked to provide even more financial support to public universities as athletic costs continue to rise? Public universities have asked for additional state funding or other forms of public financial support while this increasingly unstable system continues to expand. That’s not a functioning free market. It’s a distorted marketplace operating within nonprofit educational institutions that ultimately depend on students, donors, and, at many public universities, taxpayers.” (link) 
• Grand Canyon AD Jamie Boggs follows up on her recent X comments arguing in support of college athletics reform. “What are we risking? American college athletics is arguably the world’s most comprehensive model for combining education, athletics and student development. It provides our student-athletes the opportunity to earn a degree and compete at the highest collegiate level, while creating opportunities across women’s sports and Olympic sports. Student-athletes from around the world come here to pursue this unique combination of education and athletics, an opportunity that doesn’t exist at the same scale anywhere else. Yet we are debating whether to fundamentally change a model that invests in our student-athletes, attracts athletes from around the world, and exists at this scale only in America. Protect college sports. Protect opportunity. Protect the American student-athlete model.” (link) 
• NOTUS’ Jesse Dougherty adds some behind the scenes intrigue on the Protect College Sports Act’s final hours before the Senate closed its session: “Around 11:30 p.m., Senate leadership ran the first hotline to proceed to the bill. Murphy (D-CT) and Booker (D-NJ) both objected, according to a Senate aide. Then around 2:30 a.m., the holdouts to proceed included Murphy, Booker, a handful of Democrats and some Republicans, too. That ultimately kicked any more PCSA action to September. Given their track records, I wouldn't expect Murphy + Booker to go away on this. Why? Booker played football at Stanford and has long taken an interest in college sports issues. He and Richard Blumenthal were locked into negotiations with Ted Cruz for a while before Cruz wound up partnering with Maria Cantwell instead. And Murphy has seemed even more interested in sports than usual in recent months.  …It's only been hours — not days — since the Protect College Sports Act wasn't voted on in this Senate session. But since we now have five weeks to analyze the bill and what's next, I'd expect these two to emerge as main characters.” (link, link) 
• If you can’t get enough of the Protect College Sports Act, here are all 14 amendments, many of which were filed late in the process. (link) 
• The Senate Commerce Committee majority staff is circulating a memo to FBS football programs offering counterpoints to main criticisms of the Protect College Sports Act while asking for help with public messaging. Per NOTUS’ Jesse Dougherty, who obtained a copy of the memo, the missive states the bill is "not a return to the old amateurism model” or a “ban on legitimate NIL” but rather a targeted correction to federal law that has caused annual roster churn; inconsistent eligibility decisions; unregulated agents; pre-portal contact; recruiting inducements; and school-connected spending routed through third-parties to escape a common ceiling. (link) 
• The latest from Sacred Cow BBQ publisher/Colorado State FAR Kyle Saunders includes a full deep dive on how the Protect College Sports Act got to this point. Here’s what you need to know… 
  • Latest odds on the bill passing: “... let’s call it 15–20%. The thing that would move it fastest in either direction is a substitute text. If one appears during recess, read it for who it was written for, and then you’ll know which way the probability goes.”  
  • More from Saunders: “I’m a faculty athletics representative at a land-grant university, so take this as a view from inside rather than a set of citations: the demographic decline is arriving on schedule regardless of who wins in November, state support per student never came back to where it was, the federal research picture is unsettled in ways that have people revising budgets mid-year, and I’ve stopped reading each small-private closure or merger as an isolated event. Public universities are cutting programs, freezing hiring, and consolidating campuses. All of that was underway before a single school owed an athlete a revenue share. So when a bill promises to keep universities from going broke by regulating athlete compensation, mind the scale. The $7.2B that colleges moved from tuition and general funds into athletic departments last year is real money and worth arguing about. It is also not the reason your regional public is closing its foreign language department.” (link) 
• Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) are hoping to utilize the next five weeks before the Senate returns to session in mid-September to build Democratic opposition to the Protect College Sports Act, per NOTUS’ Jesse Dougherty. Murphy: “This month is now our opportunity to explain what’s in the bill. And explain to people, and explain to our colleagues on the left, that this is a fundamental civil rights issue. That this is an unprecedented restraint on compensation for student-athletes, but particularly young Black student-athletes.” More…  
  • Where Murphy and Booker align most is in believing student-athletes should have a real say in any college sports legislation, especially if it grants the NCAA an antitrust exemption to regulate compensation and player movement. Murphy has been public with his opposition to the PCSA, at least in spurts, while Booker has operated in the background. A Republican Senate aide remarked: “Booker and Murphy were everywhere at the end of last week. And usually when the opposition to a bill scores a win like this, you only see it get more organized, more emboldened. [Sen. Ted] Cruz and [Sen. Maria] Cantwell have their work cut out.”  
  • Murphy adds: “I don’t think this bill is going to become more popular, and it’s not going to get more popular amongst legislators as time goes on. … I just don’t think you can defend caring about the influence and money in college sports only when it pertains to largely Black athletes who are being vastly underpaid in football and basketball. This bill doesn’t do anything to constrain endorsement deals for coaches. It doesn’t stop billionaires from plowing money into the schools. It only really limits the ability of the highest-value athletes to get paid. And I don’t think that that is going to save college sports.” (link)  
• Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) had the following to say about President Donald Trump’s involvement with the Protect College Sports Act: “This is a priority for him, and not everything that we do up there is of paramount importance. He’s a sports guy. … Some politicians feign interest in ‘sportsball,’ that’s not him." Sacred Cow BBQ publisher/Colorado State FAR Kyle Saunders reacts: “As I’ve been saying for a while, the more this is coded as a win for Trump, the more Democrats will be incentivized to defect and/or wait ‘til they have control of at least the House.” (link) 
• On3’s Pete Nakos reports that plaintiffs in the Godfrey v. NCAA age-based eligibility case in the Superior Court of Cobb County (GA) have been granted an injunction against the association, per attorneys Ryan Downton and Darren Heitner. The latter opines this decision is the most important 5-in-5 order to date, adding: “The court deliberately seemed to be making an effort to create a coherent national body of interim relief on this eligibility issue. There is no split among courts across the country. Judges from New Jersey to Colorado, and many in between, have all ruled for players in these matters. Any resulting chaos is due to the NCAA refusing to read the writing on the wall. No more cases need to be filed if the NCAA were to merely provide the Class of 2022 one more year of eligibility and allow them to enter the transfer portal. But it won't. And lawsuits will continue to be filed.” More, including the full order. (link, link, link) 

As another year of Big West competition begins, this week’s developments illustrate the breadth of our responsibilities. We must continue navigating a rapidly changing legal and legislative environment while protecting student-athletes and their Division I experience in The Big West, reinforcing expectations for sportsmanship and ensuring our institutions have the information needed to respond to emerging risks. 

There is much beyond our control, and many consequential questions will not be resolved on the timetable we might prefer. Patience, however, does not require passivity. We will continue monitoring developments, communicating clearly and acting wherever we can—while remaining focused on creating an outstanding experience for every Big West student-athlete. 
 

   QUOTE OF THE WEEK   

“Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in your mind.”  - Credited to David G. Allen 

Have a great day today! 

Dan