The uplifting 2024 election news for the NCAA may have gotten even a little better on Wednesday, when Republicans tapped Sen. John Thune (R-S. D. ) to become the Senate majority leader in the next Congress.
Thune has long been engaged in the field of school sports while consistently expressing concerns about the effects of its growing professionalization. He is a former college basketball player from Biola University in California who hails from a position where two Division-I programs, South Dakota and South Dakota State, compete in the second-tier Basketball Championship Subdivision.
Thune, who will take over the GOP’s reins from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky. ), beat out Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and Texas Sen. John Cornyn. Although none of the three posed a threat to the NCAA’s recent legislative objectives, including its long-awaited desire to be protected from antitrust litigation by the Congressional delegation, Thunes ‘ appointment is undoubtedly the best-case scenario.

A Thune spokeswoman did not respond to an email inquiry, and an NCAA spokesperson declined to comment.
As the debate over college sports reform has shifted beyond athletes ‘ rights to attention to include whether they should also be given the legal protections and rights of employees, the relationship has in recent years found a more sympathetic viewers among Hill Republicans.
A section of the school’s sports anonymously voiced their opposition to players becoming employees at Augustana University, a private D-II school in Sioux Falls, S. D., in August 2023 when Thune and NCAA leader Charlie Baker convened for a college sports listening program.
Thune appeared to show support for it in an opinion piece entitled” The Opportunity to Play” the following month, in which he argued that it was crucial to” safeguard ( the things that make college sports exceptional great.” )
Similar speech has generally been used to support Thune’s prior endorsement of the NCAA’s position on amateurism.
” Obviously, collegiate sports in America is not without controversy”, the lawmaker said at a Parliamentary reading in July 2014, held in the midst of the O’Bannon v. NCAA event being filed. ” I hope we do n’t lose sight of the positive influence that amateur athletics has had on the lives of countless student athletes.” And we must keep in mind that basketball and football are not the only sports in school.
In September 2022, Thune and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md. ) introduced legislation to forbid NIL collectives and different non-profits from granting tax write-offs to donors whose funds eventually went toward paying college athletes.
Although a natural consequence of a measure like this would be to discourage donations to collectives, Thune framed the expenses as an attempt to “protect athletes” and” develop NIL.”

To be sure, no every elected official in South Dakota, allow only every Republican, is aligned with the NCAA.
In state court two months ago, the association sued the association because of its$ 2.8 billion settlement agreement with the plaintiffs in the House v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit, alleging that the governing body had breached its fiduciary duties and had violated its constitution by agreeing to the deal.
Given that President-elect Donald Trump wants to pass sizable pieces of legislation during the first few months of his second term, it remains to be seen how much Thune will promote college athletics.
A number of lawmakers questioned whether Congress may get involved in solving the NCAA’s problems at all during a Senate hearing in June 2021, one month before the NCAA’s time NIL policy became effective.
Thune said,” I really want the NCAA could figure out this complicated subject.” There are some things the federal government does well, and there are others that the state does n’t, which may not be the case.