The NCAA’s Congressional Lobbying Expenditures Hold Steady
Despite accumulating D.C.-based threats to its core business model, the NCAA does not appear to have increased its investment in Washington lobbying.
In its quarterly Congressional lobby report, filed Tuesday with the House Clerk, the NCAA reported spending $120,000 thus far in 2021. That compares similarly to the $130,000 college sports’ governing body spent over the same period last year.
Most of the NCAA’s money went to outside lobbyists, including $90,000 paid to the firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. The form also noted that Abe Frank, the NCAA’s longtime head of government affairs, was no longer lobbying on behalf of the organization. An auto-response from Frank’s email said that he had left the NCAA as of the end of January.
In addition to issues of general concern, the NCAA reported specifically lobbying on the three different college athlete compensation bills proposed by Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kans.), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.).
Several universities, including Kansas State, Nebraska and Virginia Tech, also reported lobbying Congress over college athlete name, image and likeness reform in the first quarter of 2021.
Although not all of their reports have been published, those that have come out suggest the major college athletic conferences and the College Football Playoffs have likewise spent similar amounts on lobbying as they did in 2020.
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