Before the PCSA Text (Allegedly) Drops...
I will believe it when I see it, but here's what it would change for the probabilities
On Friday I lowered my probability that the PCSA becomes law this Congress to 10–15% and listed the things that would move it back. One of them may (allegedly) happen today per the reporting. Then again, this could just be another “time is scarce” tactic to pressure and keep everyone at the table.
Per Ross Dellenger’s reporting this morning, Sens. Cruz, Cantwell, and Schmitt spent two hours on a call Sunday with six conference commissioners (the power four plus the Pac-12’s Teresa Gould and the American’s Tim Pernetti) and Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua, committing to finalize revised bill language today. A larger compensation cap is part of the discussion, and Dellenger flagged the catch: any increase has to come with language closing the associated-entity loophole, or “the $51M becomes a new floor instead of a ceiling.”
One more thing makes today assessable. The SEC and Big Ten’s asks aren’t secret: their ten-point memo to Senate offices, titled “Common Sense Improvements for the Protect College Sports Act,” has been obtained and summarized, and Darren Heitner walked through it item by item last week. So when the text drops, the first question is countable: how many of the ten did they actually get, and is the liability ask (their first item, and by their own emphasis the biggest) among the wins? We don’t know yet, and that answer will predict the endorsement before any statement does. Six of ten including liability probably gets a yes; nine of ten without it probably doesn’t.
So the revised text could drop within hours. That leaves a brief window to do this in the right order: say what each outcome does to my number before we know which outcome happens. Anybody can adjust a probability after the news and explain why the adjustment was obviously correct. Doing it beforehand means being stuck with it, which is the point.
The usual caveat applies double today. Everything below is built from what’s visible in public: reporters’ sourcing, on-record statements, one memo the conferences never meant for us to grade them by. There is no text to read yet, and the people who were on that Sunday call know a great deal that I don’t. So, before I’ve seen a word of the revised language, here is my scorecard.
Branch one: the text drops, both conferences endorse it on the record, and leadership signals a floor path. My number goes to 30–40%. That’s the toll-booth event from Friday’s post actually happening, and it would be the biggest single-day move I’ve made on this bill. If that reads low against the 75-vote reporting, the two caveats at the bottom are why.
Branch two: the text drops and the conferences say they’re reviewing it. Back to 15–20%, where I sat before Thursday. New language without endorsement doesn’t close the deal; it reopens the black box with fresh paper inside. Careful readers of Friday’s post will notice a wrinkle here: another week of calendar has burned since I set that number, so going back to it means I’m valuing text-in-hand at roughly what the lost week cost. That’s the trade.
Branch three: the text drops and the SEC or Big Ten rejects it, or answers with a fresh list. That one’s ugly. Down to 5–8%, because a public offer publicly refused measures the distance between the parties, and it takes the measurement in front of every senator who was waiting to see a deal before committing. A July no isn’t necessarily a forever no, which is why this lands at 5–8 and not lower.
Branch four: no text today, despite a reported commitment to finalize. I hold at 10–15% and log the slippage next to the others; the last batch of revised language was promised “by week’s end” in mid-July and never printed. You could argue a missed deadline deserves a cut rather than a hold. Within a five-point band, I’m calling it rounding.
That 1 AUG date from the executive order is still pretty likely to pass with little fanfare, but it’s a decent bet it’s part of what’s driving this week’s “movement.”
And a residual clause, because the likeliest outcome is messier than any clean branch of those probabilities: endorsement with conditions, one conference in and one out, a leak instead of a release.
And remember the grade isn’t only the P2’s to give. Language that buys their support by gutting the governance structure can lose some of the two dozen conferences currently backing the bill, which would be branch three wearing a friendlier press release. If the outcome is something I haven’t listed, I’ll say in writing which branch it’s nearest and why, rather than pretending the taxonomy covered it.
Definitions, so nobody (me included) can weasel later. “Endorse” means on-record statements from the SEC and Big Ten as institutions, not warmth from a person familiar. “Floor path” means an observable move from leadership: a calendar slot, a cloture filing, a unanimous-consent attempt. Sponsor optimism has been running ahead of the calendar all month and doesn’t count. “Text drops” means public text; language finalized behind closed doors is branch four, because I can only grade what I can read. “Today” means, well, today.
Two caveats run through every branch, and Friday’s readers already know both. First, the vehicle: even a signed and blessed deal needs floor time or a December ride to become law, and nothing the conferences agree to can conjure either. Second, the House: conference peace doesn’t touch the chairs’ employee-status demand or the Freedom Caucus’s federalism objection, and it does nothing about Tuberville’s whip operation on the Senate’s own floor. That’s why branch one tops out at 40 and not 60: even with the conferences on board, the bill still needs floor time it doesn’t have and a House that hasn’t moved.
The sponsors said “today.” Congress, as Sankey observed last week, works best on deadlines. We shall see.
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NB: Written in my capacity as a political scientist who studies institutions, incentives, and collective action, not as an institutional spokesperson.