UNC issued a statement on the Protect College Sports Act Friday afternoon. In the statement, the university said it supported the bill’s potential passage and called it “critical to the future and stability of college athletics.” However, the statement goes on to say the school has made a request for “one targeted amendment.”

“Supporting the bill and seeking to improve it are not in conflict,” the university said.

UNC’s statement comes the same week as multiple outlets reported that the university, along with fellow ACC members Clemson, Florida State and Miami were lobbying for an amendment to the bill. The amendment would increase a cap on conference membership from 20 to 22 institutions, as well as remove a stipulation requiring schools moving from one Power 4 conference to another to spend three years as an independent.

In a statement, the group Saving College Sports, which endorses the PCSA, referred to UNC, Clemson, Florida State and Miami as a “Gang of Four” which “want to either get out of the conference or break it apart.” The statement charges the schools’ proposed amendment with “sunsetting the entire provision so that they have the right to immediately bolt from the ACC.”

 

“It’s rare to have unanimity on anything as it relates to a bill,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, who has supported the PCSA in the past, said earlier this week in Charlotte. “We have 14 schools that feel really good about it that want to sign it, and we have four schools that have an issue with a portion of it, so that’s what I’m going to continue to push toward the decisionmakers and those that have written the bill to date.”

As for whether the four schools are setting themselves up to leave the conference in the future, Phillips said, “I don’t want to get into hypotheticals… the conference is in a good place.”

The United States Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act by a 77-22 vote in September. Among other things, the legislation seeks to set national regulations governing name, image and likeness payments and how often student-athletes can transfer schools. The bill is not yet law, as it still awaits a vote in the House of Representatives. House lawmakers will not return to Washington until after the midterm elections in November.

 

Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward

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