Bruce Pearl urges conservatives to back college sports bill that preserves Title IX
College basketball coach Bruce Pearl pushes back against conservative critics of the Protect College Sports Act, arguing the bill preserves Title IX and state women's sports laws while creating new funding for women's and Olympic sports.
Longtime college basketball coach Bruce Pearl is urging conservatives to stop attacking the Protect College Sports Act, arguing that critics are mischaracterizing legislation that explicitly preserves Title IX and state laws keeping men out of women's sports. Pearl, who has spent nearly five decades coaching college basketball, says the bill is being undermined by careless claims from conservative influencers and interest groups at a moment when unity is needed to secure protections for female athletes.
The bill's Section 127 states that nothing in the legislation will override, modify, or amend Title IX, meaning female athletes retain their current legal protections and ability to bring sex-discrimination claims. Section 120 also protects athletes, employees, and others from retaliation for reporting discrimination or participating in Title IX proceedings. Pearl argues these provisions directly contradict claims that the bill would gut Title IX or invalidate state laws that reserve women's teams for women.
Critics have also alleged the bill would erase state laws keeping men out of women's sports. Pearl says the legislation does no such thing. It establishes national standards for Division I and Division II competition on limited eligibility questions, including academics, professional status, legal violations, age, and years of eligibility. The bill neither creates a federal right for biological males to compete in women's competitions nor pre-empts state laws establishing sex-based athletic categories.
The legislation also includes financial incentives for schools to invest in women's and Olympic sports. It creates a $22.5 million athlete-retention fund and allows schools to unlock up to an additional $5 million through eligible NIL investments in women's, Olympic, and non-revenue sports. A school seeking the full $27.5 million retention allowance would first need to invest $5 million in those sports, a structure Pearl describes as an ingenious way to ensure continued investment in programs that might otherwise be left behind.
Pearl highlights the growing financial pressure on college athletics, noting that his 2025 Final Four team had a total NIL budget of approximately $4 million. By the 2027 Final Four, some teams could be operating with budgets approaching $30 million. He warns that the programs with the fewest resources become even more vulnerable with every year Congress waits to act.
The stakes extend beyond Title IX, Pearl argues. Thirty-two Division I Olympic-sports programs were cut between the announcement of the House settlement and May 2025, and more than 40 Division I Olympic-sports programs were cut between May 2024 and July 2025, according to WRAL. This comes even though 75% of American Olympians in 2024 competed in collegiate athletics, per NCAA data. Even the University of Arkansas, backed by SEC resources, announced plans to eliminate its tennis programs before donors intervened to save them.
Pearl credits Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., for moving the legislation forward, along with President Trump for restoring the biological meaning of sex in federal policy and backing the bill. He calls on conservatives who claim to support the America First movement to help Congress finish the job and deliver a win for women and college athletes.
There is broad agreement that college sports cannot continue without meaningful guardrails around eligibility, transfer policy, and NIL oversight. Pearl says the Protect College Sports Act is an important step in the right direction and that Congress needs to keep the positive momentum moving forward. He warns that infighting only helps the left, which has spent years undermining Title IX while conservatives battle over legislation that expressly preserves it.
Conservatives should debate legislation, demand improvements, and scrutinize every line, Pearl says, but facts must guide the discussion. Outrage is easy, he adds, while turning shared principles into law is harder. If conservatives cannot unite and get the bill passed, Pearl warns, college sports as we know them could be lost, with women's and Olympic sports among the first casualties.
