CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW/AP) – Although both agree the Protect College Sports Act is a step in the right direction, Virginia’s two U.S. Senators split their votes on the bill the U.S. Senate passed by a 77-22 margin Monday.

Senior Senator Mark Warner voted in favor of the bill, which would standardize a federal NIL framework, but junior Senator Tim Kaine voted against it. Kaine did indicate he is hopeful the legislation will be improved whenever the House gets around to considering it, something that isn’t expected to happen until after the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

Kaine told reporters during a conference call this week he had three problems with the bill that led him to oppose its passage. The first is the limitation on lawsuits.

The bill offers the NCAA some protection against lawsuits in several areas, most notably on eligibility issues that have landed the governing body in court dozens of times over the past year. Most recently, the lawsuits are coming from players who graduated high school in 2022 and were denied a fifth year of college eligibility under a new rule that kicks in for the Class of ’23.

“I very much objected to telling student athletes that their ability to file lawsuits against their institutions for egregious behavior was pre-empted,” said Kaine. “And remember just because you file a lawsuit doesn’t mean you’re going to win, I mean you have to prove that the university has affirmatively harmed you to win, so I didn’t like that piece of the bill.”

Kaine noted he thought that part of the bill was improved between the time it passed a Senate committee Sept. 22 and passed the Senate Sept. 28, and he thinks that part will be further shored up in the House.

The bill would put into law the revenue sharing that was negotiated under terms of the House settlement, which allows schools to share up to 22% of certain revenue with athletes. This year, that amounts to $21.58 million per school. It also would add a $27.5 million “retention pool” that can be used to keep current players on the roster and is designed to bring many of the third-party name, image and likeness payments from “associated entities” affiliated with the schools under the new cap.

That is another issue where Kaine had a problem because he said Congress is setting a cap without input from the student-athletes.

“You know, it’s one thing if the NFL Players Association does a negotiation with the NFL owners and they come up with salary caps or a revenue sharing agreement because they’re all at the table, and they can negotiate what the deal should be” Kaine said. “But this was an example of Congress imposing revenue caps on players in the money-making sports when they weren’t at the table.”

The bill caps sports agent fees at 5%. There’s also the so-called “Lane Kiffin rule” which prevents a coach from leaving one school for another during the season.

But Kaine objected to the fact that student-athletes pay is capped and no one else’s.

“I mean look at these coaching salaries, for God’s sakes, some of these coaches become multi, multi, even hundred millionaires if they fail and have their contracts bought out and there’s no cap on that,” said Kaine. “And there’s no cap on what athletic directors make, what about what sports networks make of these athletes, and what about online gambling companies make off these athletes?”

“College athletics provide incredible opportunities for student-athletes, serve as a critical pipeline for Team USA, and bring beloved traditions to communities across Virginia,” Warner said in a statement provided to Cville Right Now. “I’ve long understood their importance – as governor, I worked to make sure Virginia Tech had a place in the newly expanded ACC.”

“The current disorder in college sports isn’t serving athletes, schools, or fans well,” Warner said. “This bill isn’t perfect, but it provides needed stability while protecting athletes’ ability to earn compensation from their name, image, and likeness, safeguarding scholarships, expanding guaranteed access to health care, and protecting athletes from predatory agents.:

“I’m also glad to see strong protections for women’s and Olympic sports, and I believe this bill represents an important step toward a fairer and more sustainable future for college athletics,” said Warner.

The Senate rejected an amendment by New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker that would have limited coaching salaries to $5 million a year with all the Democrats voting for it, but all Republicans who voted rejecting it.

Other provisions in the bill include allowing an athlete one transfer without having to sit out a season, amending a 1961 law prohibiting to allow conferences the option of pooling their media rights to generate more revenue, prohibiting conferences from expanding beyond 20 teams, requiring schools to maintain the number of Olympic sports they had in the ’24-’25 academic year for at least nine years, and provide federal funding for broadband and media infrastructure at historically Black college and university programs.