Sports
Sen. Ted Cruz against idea of college athletes as employees
Sen. Ted Cruz said it is “absolutely critical” that any federal law related to college sports includes a provision that prevents athletes from being deemed employees of their school.
The Republican from Texas, who holds a key position in advancing NCAA legislation as chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, told ESPN in an interview Wednesday that Congress might run out of time to act if it can’t find a bipartisan solution in the coming months. During a yearslong effort to restore order to the college sports industry, Republicans and Democrats have remained largely divided on whether college athletes should have a future avenue for collective bargaining, which would require them to be employees.
“Clarifying that student athletes are not employees is absolutely critical,” Cruz told ESPN. “Without it, we will see enormous and irreparable damage to college sports.”
Cruz and NCAA leaders say many smaller schools would not be able to afford their teams if athletes had to be paid and receive benefits as employees. However, as lawsuits over player contracts and eligibility rules continue to mount, a growing number of frustrated coaches and athletic directors from major programs say they are open to collective bargaining as a solution.
“I’ve always been against this idea of players as employees, but quite frankly, that might be the only way to protect the collegiate model,” Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney, a longtime defender of amateurism, said at a news conference last week.
The NCAA and its members have spent millions of dollars in the past several years lobbying Congress for a bill that would grant the association an antitrust exemption, supersede state laws related to college sports and block attempts to gain employee status for athletes. Despite more than a dozen Capitol Hill hearings and a long list of proposals, no bill has reached a full vote in either chamber of Congress to date.
Senate Commerce Committee staff told ESPN that Cruz and a bipartisan group of senators have made significant progress on a new draft of a bill but are at an impasse on the employment issue. Cruz said Democrats and labor unions are concerned about setting a broader precedent for other industries by closing the door on college athlete employment, which has led to the stalemate.
“From a political perspective, you have labor union bosses that would love to see every college athlete deemed an employee made a member of a union and contributing union dues to elect Democrats,” Cruz said. “It’s terrible for college sports, but I get that there’s some partisan appeal to it.”
Sen. Maria Cantwell, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Commerce Committee, said in a statement to ESPN that she also sees “growing bipartisan interest” for Congress to act. She has proposed separate college sports legislation that doesn’t advocate for athletes to be employees but leaves the door open for employment or collective bargaining in the future. She told ESPN that the committee “should move the ball forward with a hearing on this [topic].”
The large and expanding gap between the top tier of college teams and the rest of the NCAA has made it difficult to find a fair solution for all parties.
Last September, the commissioners of four conferences that comprise many of the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities told members of Congress in a letter that making college athletes employees would “pose an existential threat” to their teams.
Most schools in those conferences spend between $10 million and $20 million annually on their entire athletic department — roughly 10% the size of athletic budgets at power conference schools. Their commissioners told Congress that a legal need to pay additional benefits to athletes “could lead to the elimination of intercollegiate athletics” at some schools.
Meanwhile, the pressing problems the NCAA says can be solved only via federal legislation — schools suing players over contract disputes, players suing the NCAA to extend their eligibility or to return to college from professional careers — are exclusively happening at the wealthier power-conference schools.
Congress could help by distinguishing between college athletes who should be considered school employees and those who shouldn’t, said employment attorney Scott Schneider, who works with athletic departments at small and large universities.
Schneider said that he does not see a clear legal path to collective bargaining but that schools could solve many of their most pressing problems by signing athletes to employment contracts instead of the name, image and likeness licensing deals currently used to pay players.
Schneider said treating all Division I athletes as a “monolith is absurd.” He said it’s clear that the relationship between an athlete and a small institution is “vastly different” from that between a star player and an SEC school, for example.
“The smaller university doesn’t have the same degree of day-to-day control over how the player spends their time,” Schneider said. He pointed to Colorado coach Deion Sanders’ recent announcement that he would fine players for missing practice or breaking other team rules as an example of employment-like control.
“There is a way to draw that line in legislation so you don’t have to draw it through years and years of litigation,” Schneider said.
When asked if creating a distinction between groups of college athletes is a viable compromise for Congress, Cruz told ESPN that he does not think “employment status is the answer to this problem.”
Employment and collective bargaining could give athletes benefits beyond negotiating for more money, such as health care, scholarship guarantees and a more significant voice in making rules. Senate Commerce Committee staffers said the proposal currently being negotiated includes all of those benefits in a way that “would exceed what [players] could get in collective bargaining.” One staffer said the hope is to provide more benefits to athletes without creating fundamental changes to the college sports system.
“The employment system is dramatically different than what a student-athlete is,” Cruz told ESPN. “A student-athlete is meant to be a student, to get a degree. And the entire world of employment regulation is designed for a totally different system.”
The NCAA is the defendant in one active federal lawsuit that claims all Division I athletes should be deemed employees of their schools. The plaintiffs, led by former Villanova football player Trey Johnson, and attorney Paul McDonald argue that athletes should be given the same rights as students who sell tickets or concessions at college sports games — treated as employees while still working toward their degrees.
The Johnson case has been awaiting its next hearing for more than a year. Many college sports leaders are concerned that if Congress members don’t decide on employment status in the near future, a federal judge will do it for them.
Sports
Craig Morton, quarterback who led the Broncos to their first Super Bowl appearance, dead at 83
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Former Denver Broncos quarterback Craig Morton, who was inducted into the team’s Ring of Fame, died on Saturday. He was 83.
Morton was critical in helping the Broncos reach their first-ever playoff appearance, ultimately getting them to Super Bowl XII during the 1977 campaign.
After going 12-2 during the season, and getting wins in the playoffs over the Pittsburgh Steelers and then-Oakland Raiders, Morton was named the AFC Offensive Player of the Year.
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Denver Broncos quarterback Craig Morton stands on the sidelines with both hands on his hips. (GETTY)
“Craig Morton is unbelievable,” fellow Ring of Famer Haven Moses said after the Broncos won the AFC Championship in 1978, per the New York Times. “To me, he’s the most valuable player in the National Football League.”
Morton also won Sporting News Player of the Year, the PFWA Comeback Player of the Year and the NFL UPI MVP in 1977.
“We are saddened to learn of the passing of #BroncosROF quarterback Craig Morton, who died on Saturday at the age of 83,” the Broncos posted on social media.
Morton also led the Broncos to two different division titles and three playoff berths during his six seasons with the franchise. He finished his career in Denver with 11,895 passing yards, which marked the most in franchise history at the time.
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Quarterback Craig Morton #7 of the Denver Broncos drops back to pass during an NFL game at Mile High Stadium in Denver, Colo., circa 1978. Morton played for the Broncos from 1977 to 1982. (Focus On Sport/Getty Images)
Morton also led the Broncos with pass attempts (1,594) and completions (907). But Morton’s time with the Broncos was the latter half of his NFL career.
He was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in 1965, the fifth overall pick out of Cal. Morton spent the first 10 seasons of his career with the Cowboys, where he threw for 10,279 yards with 80 touchdowns and 73 interceptions. He went 32-14-1 in his time with Dallas.
Then, during the 1974 season, Morton was moved to the New York Giants, a division rival of the Cowboys. He went 1-6 in his first seven starts that year and wouldn’t find much success in New York across three seasons.
Quarterback Craig Morton #7 of the Denver Broncos drops back to pass during an NFL game at Mile High Stadium in Denver, Colo., circa 1978. Morton played for the Broncos from 1977 to 1982. (Focus On Sport/Getty Images)
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For his career, Morton threw for 27,908 yards with 183 touchdowns. He owned an 81-62-1 record across 207 games.
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Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza’s year couldn’t have been more perfect.
He led his Hoosiers to an unblemished 16-0 season, captured the national championship in historic fashion and won the 2025 Heisman before being selected first in the 2026 NFL Draft by the Raiders.
Now that the path is clear for a new athlete to leave NYC in December holding the Heisman, who will it be?
Here are the way-too-early odds at DraftKings Sportsbook as of May 5.
This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX Sports may be compensated. Read more about Sports Betting on FOX Sports.
2026 Heisman Trophy Winner
CJ Carr (Notre Dame): +750 (bet $10 to win $85 total)
Arch Manning (Texas): +750 (bet $10 to win $85 total)
Julian Sayin (Ohio State): +1000 (bet $10 to win $110 total)
Dante Moore (Oregon): +1000 (bet $10 to win $110 total)
Trinidad Chambliss (Ole Miss): +1100 (bet $10 to win $120 total)
Josh Hoover (TCU): +1200 (bet $10 to win $130 total)
Darian Mensah (Miami, FL): +1200 (bet $10 to win $130 total)
Jeremiah Smith (Ohio State): +1300 (bet $10 to win $140 total)
Gunner Stockton (Georgia): +1800 (bet $10 to win $190 total)
Sam Leavitt (Arizona State): +2000 (bet $10 to win $210 total)
Marcel Reed (Texas A&M): +2500 (bet $10 to win $260 total)
Jayden Maiava (USC): +2500 (bet $10 to win $260 total)
John Mateer (Oklahoma): +2800 (bet $10 to win $290 total)
Here’s more on a few of the names on the 2026 Heisman oddsboard:
The Favorites: Carr and Manning are tied at +750 to win the Heisman Trophy at the end of the 2026 regular season. And the latter is no stranger to Heisman talk. He opened as the favorite for the 2025 Heisman at several books and right before the season kicked off, bettors were hammering Manning’s futures. The excitement over Manning was short-lived once his Longhorns went 4-2 to begin the season. If he is at least named a finalist, he would follow in the footsteps of his uncles and his grandfather, as both Peyton and Eli Manning, and their dad Archie, were Heisman finalists during their college careers.
Arch Manning is an early favorite to win the 2026 Heisman Trophy.
Ones to Watch: Ohio State teammates Jeremiah Smith and Julian Sayin are two players to watch for next season’s Heisman — especially because they were both in the conversation to win the award most of 2025. Sayin, in fact, was a Heisman finalist and finished fourth in the race with eight first-place votes. Smith didn’t make the trip to New York but finished sixth in the tally. FOX Sports college football writer RJ Young projects that both Smith and Sayin — as well as Manning — will be in the running in 2026.
Ohio State’s Julian Sayin could make another trip to NYC — but this time as the winner.
Heisman in Troy?: Could Maiava bring the hardware back to SC from NYC? Based on the early odds, he could have at least a slight chance. If the Trojans’ QB wins the most coveted individual award in college football, he’d be the first USC player since Caleb Williams (2022) to do so. Maiava finished the 2025 season with 3,711 passing yards and 24 touchdowns, as his squad ended the year with a 9-4 record.
Sports
Aaron Rodgers never met with Steelers despite rumor-filled weekend as QB’s decision remains up in air
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Aaron Rodgers didn’t make it back to Pittsburgh after all.
After reports surfaced this past Friday that Rodgers was expected to visit the Pittsburgh Steelers in preparation for a return to the team he played for last year, many were hopeful the months-long wait was over.
However, during his appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” on ESPN this Monday, Adam Schefter said neither the Steelers nor his agent were aware of any such meeting being on the schedule.
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Aaron Rodgers of the Steelers stands during the national anthem before an NFL game against the Baltimore Ravens at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Jan. 4, 2026. (Michael Owens/Getty Images)
But then, there were the reports about where Rodgers is in the world, with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporting that he was in the Steel City, though he wasn’t scheduled to visit with the team. A report from 93.7 The Fan added on, saying he was in town for golf.
Either way, the decision still lingers whether Rodgers will suit up for the Steelers, but the storied franchise gave themselves some insurance if the four-time MVP quarterback decides he wants to potentially play elsewhere.
STEELERS OWNERSHIP HOPES FOR CLARITY ON AARON RODGERS’ FUTURE ‘IN THE NEXT MONTH OR SO’
The Steelers used an unrestricted free-agent tender on Rodgers last month, which allows Pittsburgh the right to match any offer Rodgers may get from another team.
Despite doubt from some camps on Rodgers’ potential return, Schefter noted his belief he will be in the Steelers’ depth chart come training camp. The Steelers have their OTAs scheduled to begin next Monday.
Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers drops back to pass against the Baltimore Ravens at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Jan. 4, 2026. (Getty Images)
With Rodgers at the helm this past season, the Steelers went 10-7, even earning a playoff berth after Baltimore Ravens rookie Tyler Loop’s now-infamous game-winning field goal did not get through the uprights. The Steelers ended up losing to the Houston Texans in the wild-card round, extending the team’s playoff winless streak to eight straight seasons, including three consecutive campaigns.
Rodgers, who’s slated for the Pro Football Hall of Fame once he decides to call it quits for his career, threw for 3,322 yards with 24 touchdowns to seven interceptions in 16 games for Pittsburgh in 2025.
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The Steelers also revamped their team for this season, as Mike McCarthy, Rodgers’ old head coach with the Green Bay Packers, takes over for Mike Tomlin, whose generational run in Pittsburgh ended after 19 seasons (2007-25). While D.K. Metcalf and Rodgers built chemistry this past season, the Steelers also added veteran receiver Michael Pittman Jr. in a deal with the Indianapolis Colts, while adding Alabama’s Germie Bernard in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers after being sacked during the wild-card game against the Houston Texans at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Jan. 12, 2026. (Michael Longo/For USA Today Network-PA/USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
And while Kenneth Gainwell is gone after a solid performance with Pittsburgh, Rico Dowdle comes into the fold to work alongside Jaylen Warren at running back.
Yet, the biggest question in football still remains: will Rodgers be a part of these new-look Steelers in 2026?
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Craig Morton, quarterback who led the Broncos to their first Super Bowl appearance, dead at 83
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