Rise and shine. This is your Morning Buzzcast for Monday, August 3rd. I'm Austin Karp. Well, folks, it's finally here. NFL preseason football is upon us. Thursday night, NBC, Panthers-Cardinals in the Hall of Fame game. Congratulations to NBC on that primetime win a little early. But let's get to some serious sports business news to start your Monday. History looks like it's going to be made in Washington, D.C. this week. After the SEC and Big Ten on Friday night, they finally came out in support of the Protect College Sports Act after some major concessions were made. The goal here is to have the U.S. Senate hold a vote before lawmakers leave for a month-long recess.
While I'm not jumping on CalShea to check the odds or anything, those that have been covering this closely, that includes my colleague, SBJ College sports reporter Ben Portnoy, think that there is more than enough bipartisan support to get to the 60 votes needed here, perhaps as high as 80 votes, especially with the Power 2 conferences now behind this. Then if it goes to the House of Representatives, then it can go to President Trump's desk. He's already in support of this, and this could eventually become law quite quickly. Leave it to sports, though, to be the one thing that can still unify folks from both sides of the aisle. Now, the Big Ten and the SEC, they came on board after legislators agreed to strengthen a provision that prohibits schools from circumventing.
athlete revenue share cap. Oddly enough, that push for such a hard cap came from someone in the baseball world, as it was Randy Levine, president of the Yankees and confidence to President Trump, who was advising this course of action as it would require school sponsors and apparel brands to enter into an attestation process to certify these NIL deals are on a level, and they're not directed by the schools. Also, that compensation doesn't originate from the school. Now, similar language already existed in the bill for multimedia rights partners like Learfield and Playfly. Other key components of this law that you're going to need to know, the NCAA and conferences.
They're going to get a limited antitrust exemption here to reimplement the one-time transfer exception, standardize a five-year eligibility policy, and ban pro athletes from returning to college, as well as establishing an agency registry and a maximum agent fee of 5%. Also, power for conference membership that's going to be capped at 19 schools and require programs that want to move from one of these power conferences to another. They're going to have to operate as an independent for five years. That's likely not music to the ears of maybe some ACC schools that have been rumored over the last couple of years to be considering exits. I'm talking about Clemson.
Miami, Florida State, North Carolina, Georgia Tech, all schools that have been rumored as such. Also, the athlete cap or your roster cap, whatever you want to call it, that's going to go from $21.3 million to $48.8 million. And finally, perhaps my favorite provision of this new potential law is the Lane Kiffin rule. Coaches will not be allowed to leave their team before a season ends. We saw all the dust up when Lane left for LSU last season. Let's nip that in the bud. But it's tough not to think of this as a historic moment for college sports and the business of college sports. College sports is going to get this hard cap.
that everyone has kind of wanted for these salaries and some common sense rules. It's not quite at the finish line yet, but it looks as though some sort of law is coming for what has been the Wild West out there in college sports. Speaking of the Wild West and politics, let's move over to FIFA, where Johnny Infantino looks like he could be facing a serious challenge now to his leadership and a potential vote of no confidence. UEFA, which is essentially the SEC and Big Ten wrapped into one for global soccer, it has withdrawn letters of support for Infantino, who was up for re-election to a fourth term this coming March. He was supposed to run unopposed there.
All 55 members of UEFA withdrawing letters there. Not something to be taken very lightly. Reports have also shown that Victor Montagliani, who runs CONCACAF here in North America, he could be moving toward challenging Infantino in that election in March. Now, Infantino's troubles can be traced to this now dead plan for FIFA to sell a stake in its tournaments to private equity groups. That was swiftly met, not only with UEFA's decision to boycott future FIFA tournaments, but then Asia and North America, they also came out condemning the plan. Even had FIFA senior advisor Carlos Cordero. He resigned in protest. FIFA's own COO.
heavily criticized Infantino's plan that he was kept in the dark. Fair to say that this really blew up in Johnny Infantino's face in just weeks after the end of one of the most commercially successful, if not the most commercially successful World Cup on record. Now, while UEFA is strong on the pitch and is very notable, a lot of the best soccer-playing countries in the world there, it is still just one block here, one group, 55 of 211 members within FIFA, and Infantino has gotten support from some smaller countries like Qatar, Sri Lanka, Kuwait, and those votes count as much as Spain, France, or England. Now, most of Africa and South America continue to look to be aligned with Infantino. for the moment. So watch for these candidates to emerge that could challenge Infantino and also his efforts in gathering support of nations to stay in power ahead of that vote in March. Well, Friday was a very busy day indeed that also involved CBS Sports suspending Tony Romo indefinitely, or as CBS put it in its not-so-supportive statement that he was suspended until further notice. J.J. Watt, he's going to be the number one analyst alongside Jim Nance and Tracy Wolfson. Now, this is sure to be a key headline at CBS NFL Media Day with the press on August 11th, where all that talent's going to come out and have to talk to the media last year at that event.
I remember Romo and Jim Nance just holding court, talking about their summer and golf and pebble and football and such. Well, that tenor, that environment, that's going to completely change now in Manhattan on August 11th. Everyone up and down the CBS talent and executive roster is going to be prepared for these questions around Tony Romo and his future. But as my pal Andrew Marchand wrote for The Athletic, Romo's future with CBS is indeed precarious. Many think his work over the last couple of years in that top CBS NFL analyst role that has slipped. A lot of people have said that or written that.
And that was after CBS paid big to retain Romo. Like most TV talent deals, there's a morals clause in there for Romo. So if CBS Sports and Paramount Skydance really want to head another direction, this could be the time, this could be the opportunity they take. to maybe separate themselves from Tony Romo. Let's get to some final nuggets this morning. Your new commissioner of the Big East will be former longtime MLB executive Tim Brosnan. Brosnan would replace Val Ackerman. She is retiring at the end of this month. ESPN reported that Big Ten COO Kerry Kinney was a finalist for that Big East commissioner role. Now, Tim Brosnan, he worked at Major League Baseball from 1991 to 2015. He was regularly named by SBJ as one of those most influential people in sports business. But he left MLB after losing out to Rob Manfred for the commissioner role back in 2014. Now, a media rights deal, that's not going to be an immediate need for the Big East.
That conference is entering the second year of a six-year deal. But Brosnan brings that sort of background. He did the big MLB TV deals when he was there, had a hand in launching MLB Network alongside, coincidentally, now Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petiti. But keep your eye on Kerry Kenny, the finalist there for that job. That guy has some serious chops in the college landscape. He's heading into his 19th season with the Big Ten, but it was good to see his name there floated as a finalist. Tarek Skubal is a Dodger in what felt like a fait accompli. Once it became known, he was going to be leaving Detroit. Yes, it highlights some of the key.
points that labor and management within baseball are already fighting over. A lot of that having to do with a common sense salary cap and a salary floor. But a lot of people out there saying the Dodgers are rooting baseball. I want you to remember this. This is courtesy of a post from Mike Varkanov of The Athletic out there. The 2026 Dodgers payroll, 15% higher than the number two team out there. Look back to the 2005 Yankees. They were 70% higher than the second highest team in baseball. So this is not unprecedented. Finally, streaming platform Victory Plus has removed founder Neil Renninger as CEO and replaced him with a board member. That comes after the company.
Recently saw the Anaheim Ducks, Texas Rangers, and the NWSL all pull out of deals with the company. The latter two, they pulled out mid-season, no less, so it shows you what the situation was actually like. Earlier this year, Victory Plus was seen as a potential landing spot for a number of NBA, NHL, and MLB teams with the collapse of Main Street Sports Group there within local distribution. But life comes at you fast. The only team with a rights fee still on Victory Plus, that's the Dallas Stars. The NHL season is now around three months away, and things are moving quickly here, so pay attention to that. Never a dull moment in sports business, even here in the dog days of summer.
But that does it for your Morning Buzzcast for Monday, August 3rd. Abe Matgort is back on the mic on Tuesday. I hope you all have a great week. Get those fantasy football draft dates set. Make good choices out there, and I will speak to you all again soon.