New Jersey’s flagship public university is bleeding red ink because of the insane money grab that has engulfed the business of college sports – yet the state’s senior senator in Washington is strangely at odds with legislation to reform the system, On The Money has learned.
US Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) should have unique insight into the college sports money grab and how it’s decimating good schools like Rutgers. A former college athlete himself (he played tight end on Stanford University’s football team), Booker has for years advocated protections for student athletes.
Yet Booker claims that the reforms codified in a bipartisan bill introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) are akin to relegating college athletes to the status of indentured servants. That’s even though proposals in the bill merely codify a sensible revenue sharing deal previously reached between students and universities, plus a $22 million per year endorsement cap for colleges.
But that’s before some savvy sports agents and lawyers more recently exploited a loophole that allowed the cap to be easily circumvented. As a result, the so-called “Name Image and Likeness” system, which allows student athletes to make money off of endorsements, now showers a very small percentage of student athletes (mainly in football and basketball) with big money, while it siphons resources away from the vast majority of other sports.
Academic pursuits are also getting short shrift as schools vie for talent with lucrative NIL endorsement deals. The most prized athletes can change schools several times during their college career, and remain in school for more than four years. The money is so good, there’s no need to turn pro.
So why is Booker against this reform? When you peel back his rhetoric, it appears the senator is most obsessed with granting college athletes the ability to collectively bargain, which progressives view as a constitutional right. The thing is, collective bargaining is illegal at state schools, which are exempt from the US National Labor Relations Act. Some states like Texas don’t even allow collective bargaining on a state level.
“I don’t understand why Cory Booker would oppose this bill since 75% of what’s in it comes from bills he’s proposed including health care and scholarship protections,” said Randy Levine, the vice chair of president Trump’s blue ribbon panel that came up with recommendations for the Cruz-Cantwell legislation. “The fact is, all the schools in New Jersey support it and Rutgers is bleeding money.”
Rutgers is a large school in the prestigious Big 10 conference, but it still doesn’t have the donor base to raise money to compete with other larger schools for players and coaches. Its sports programming lost $78 million last year and, I am told, it is in the hole $46 million this year as it scrapes for cash to keep players in football and basketball from jumping to other schools offering endorsement deals. Even more, polls show most Americans in both political parties and across race, support reforming the college sports business for the reasons stated above.
On The Money tried to reach out to a Booker rep to get his side of the story, and as of press time, we haven’t heard back. A rep Rutgers also didn’t return a call for comment.
Earlier in the year, President Trump issued an executive order for new national rules for the business side of college sports, and even threatened to withhold federal funding for schools that fail to comply. The efforts began with his commission headed by Levine, who is also president of the New York Yankees, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, himself a former college baseball player.
High on their list of priorities was the NIL construct, which started with good intentions as a way to help student athletes make a few bucks. The NIL has undergone a twisted transformation turning college sports into a $50 billion valuation business.
As we have reported, top stars like football standout Arch Manning get multimillion-dollar deals from big schools, and some coaches are paid salaries rivaling what they get in the pros. The downside is that smaller schools like Rutgers can’t compete for talent; sports outside of football and basketball get short changed. One big problem: Donor money is siphoned from academics to so-called booster clubs, or collectives, that are exempt from most regulations by the NCAA and are used to woo student athletes to jump ship to the highest bidder.
The Cruz-Cantwell “Protect College Sports Act of 2026” is attempting to stop this madness and recently passed on a bipartisan basis through the Senate Commerce Committee, but it faces obstacles passing the upper chamber. The big-name colleges are opposing the measure because the current system favors them, while some lawmakers like Booker are demanding add-ons, trying to tie their support to left-wing priorities that will ensure its defeat, I am told.
And to what end? As Levine put it: “Booker argues that this bill limits payments to athletes but it doesn’t; it merely changes the system so it’s not just 2% of athletes, mostly in football and men’s basketball, getting all the money. The current system shuts out the vast majority of student athletes from any of the money. This bill will change that.”
