Protect College Sports Act will protect my sport | Sophie Stylianos

Collegiate athletes are often put on a glamorous pedestal, in part because of tremendous revenue for colleges, conferences and athletes in the most popular sports. But for most college athletes, the reality can be summed up in one word: grit. 

As a current student-athlete at the University of Michigan, my typical day starts at 5 a.m. I head to roughly three hours of athletic practice, spend several more hours in class and then return to the training facilities for additional athletic commitments. While endurance sports, including my sport of rowing, are notorious for having the highest amounts of practice hours, similarly rigorous schedules are standard for college athletes.   

Across sports, dedicated college athletes show up every day. Through personal hardships and rain or shine, athletes make tremendou commitments to their teams, often without full or even partial scholarships. At Michigan, we show up every day to "breathe life into the Block M," as one of my coaches says.

Only 16% of the University of Michigan's 900-plus student-athletes compete in revenue-producing sports. As a woman competing in a non-revenue sport, I recognize the importance of these sports and the immense value and opportunities they bring to our school and athletic community. But the new collegiate landscape of revenue sharing and payments for the use of an athlete's "name, image and likeness" (NIL) has raised concern about how revenue inequality could ultimately impact the quality of programs such as mine through potential roster and budget cuts.

While more than half of recent Team U.S.A. Olympians competed in their sports at the collegiate level, fewer than 10% of NIL and revenue-sharing funds go to collegiate Olympic sports programs. I’m proud to be on an Olympic-level team that has been represented in every summer Olympics since its varsity inception, and I want future generations of athletes to know and experience American athletic excellence on a world stage.

These financial disparities create continued uncertainty about the future of women’s and Olympic sports, particularly at schools without Michigan’s level of resources. They also underscore a broader need for stability and clear standards across college athletics. While collegiate athletics has moved away from amateurism amid increasing commercialization, we must preserve the integrity of the communities and life skills that benefit millions of student-athletes.

The Protect College Sports Act is bipartisan legislation designed to ensure such protections are enshrined in law. The bill would guarantee the protection of rosters for women’s and Olympic sports, set comparable standards across men’s and women’s sports, and create greater stability in recruiting and anti-tampering practices. It also would provide for the collective sale of broadcasting rights for the Football Bowl Subdivision, so a portion of the revenue would be split equally among participating institutions to support their athletic programs. And it would create a congressional committee to advocate for student-athlete protection on any future and unresolved issues.

The bill is supported by 248 athletic conferences, including the Big Ten and more than 300 colleges and universities. Just as college athletics unites teams around a common goal, the Protect College Sports Act has united organizations across party and conference lines to serve collegiate athletes across the country.

I am glad students are now profiting from their name, image and likeness. The Protect College Sports Act will ensure profits are not at the expense of athletes like me. This legislative effort addresses many of the concerns Olympic and women’s sports programs face and matters deeply for the broader future of college athletics.