Key Points

This bill creates national rules for how college athletes make money from endorsements. It stops schools from blocking these deals but sets limits to ensure the money is for actual business work. This is meant to stop "pay-for-play" where boosters use fake deals to lure top players to specific schools.
Schools making over $20 million a year from sports must provide better health and education benefits. This includes paying for sports-related medical bills for three years after a student leaves school and offering financial aid to help former players come back and finish their degrees for up to seven years.
The bill legally defines college athletes as students, not employees. This means they cannot be treated like school staff, which prevents them from forming unions or suing for employee rights. This would apply across the whole country, replacing different rules in different states.
To protect regular students from rising costs, big-budget schools that make $50 million or more from TV deals can no longer charge students extra fees to fund sports. All schools would also have to clearly list on their websites exactly how much money they take from student fees to pay for athletic programs.
The plan protects athletes from being taken advantage of by capping sports agent fees at 5% of any endorsement deal. It also allows athletes to transfer to a new school at least once without losing their right to play immediately, provided they are in good academic standing.

EducationLabor EmploymentEconomy Finance

Impact Analysis

Personal Impact

Scores run from -100 (strongly harmful) to +100 (strongly beneficial) for each group, combining impact, certainty, scope, and duration ratings of 1-5. How impact scoring works

Life & Work

The bill explicitly declares that college athletes cannot be considered employees of their school, conference, or athletic association. This would block any path for college athletes to unionize or gain collective bargaining rights, overriding recent legal efforts and NLRB rulings that were moving toward recognizing athletes as employees. This provision preempts all state and federal labor law on this question.

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Programs

Disabilities

Milestones

5 milestones14 actions

Dec 1, 2025House

Rules Committee Resolution H. Res. 916 Reported to House. Rule provides for consideration of H.R. 4312, H.R. 1005, H.R. 1049, H.R. 1069, H.R. 2965 and H.R. 4305. The resolution provides for consideration of H.R. 4312, H.R. 1005, H.R. 1049, H.R. 1069, H.R. 2965, and H.R. 4305 under a closed rule with one hour of general debate and one motion to recommit on each bill.

Nov 25, 2025House

Supplemental report filed by the Committee on Education and Workforce, H. Rept. 119-270, Part IV.

Nov 25, 2025House

Supplemental report filed by the Committee on Energy and Commerce, H. Rept. 119-270, Part III.

Sep 11, 2025House

Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 226.

The bill is now on the schedule for the full chamber to consider. It's in line for debate and a vote.

Sep 11, 2025House

Reported (Amended) by the Committee on Education and Workforce. H. Rept. 119-270, Part II.

Related News

2 articles

CBS Sports·Jul 10, 2025

SCORE Act, a bill alter that would the landscape of college sports, has been formally introduced in U.S. House

The SCORE Act (Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements) establishes federal standards for NIL, mandates healthcare coverage for ex-athletes for three years, and maintains that athletes are students, not employees, preventing them from forming unions.

Center

Fox News·Dec 6, 2025

'IT'S BROKEN': Lawmaker sounds alarm on college athlete pay issue

Rep. Tim Walberg discussed the stalling of the SCORE Act in the House after leadership canceled a planned vote. While supporters see it as a necessary step to treat athletes as students first, some Republicans joined Democrats in criticizing the bill as a 'band-aid' on a larger mess.

Right

Related Bills

1 bill

H.Res. 916Related bill

Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4312) to protect the name, image, and likeness rights of student athletes and to promote fair competition with respect to intercollegiate athletics, and for other purposes; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1005) to prohibit elementary and secondary schools from accepting funds from or entering into contracts with the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party, and for other purposes; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1049) to ensure that parents are aware of foreign influence in their child's public school, and for other purposes; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1069) to prohibit the availability of Federal education funds for elementary and secondary schools that receive direct or indirect support from the Government of the People's Republic of China; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2965) to require the Administrator of the Small Business Administration to ensure that the small business regulatory budget for a small business concern in a fiscal year is not greater than zero, and for other purposes; and providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4305) to direct the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration to establish a Red Tape Hotline to receive notifications of burdensome agency rules, and for other purposes.

Dec 2 — Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection.

No votes recorded for this bill yet.

SCORE Act

Legislative Progress