ESPN came under intense fire after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) stumped for his Protect College Sports Act legislation for nearly 10 minutes on College GameDay on Saturday.
Cruz’s controversial appearance came after Pat McAfee and Nick Saban urged Congress to pass the bipartisan bill, which aims to return power to the NCAA after players achieved empowerment through NIL, on the previous week’s GameDay. Cruz received relentless boos during the segment, but ESPN shouldered most of the scrutiny, especially because Disney, its parent company, is reportedly among broadcast companies lobbying for the Protect College Sports Act.
By Saturday night, the NAACP had joined the chorus of ESPN critics.
“Surprised @espn so willing[ly] lent their platform to political performance today,” the NAACP’s official account posted on X. “But we’ll play. We’d love to have @DerrickNAACP join you in his home state of [Mississippi] next week to express why the Protect College Sports Act is dangerous to Black Athletes and the Black community [shrugging emoji].”
According to Stewart Mandel and Justin Williams of The Athletic, ESPN saw Cruz’s GameDay appearance as an “easy decision” and offered that the network would “obviously do the same” for dissenting voices if any had requested to appear.
The NAACP tested ESPN’s reported stance by readily offering NAACP CEO and president Derrick Johnson. While ESPN did not invite Johnson to GameDay, he did appear on the 6 p.m. SportsCenter on Tuesday.
“Athletes should have a voice in the process.”
“There’s no instability in the game, there’s just greed by the conferences.”
NAACP president Derrick Johnson offers a rebuttal to Sen. Ted Cruz in an appearance on ‘SportsCenter’ 📺🏈 pic.twitter.com/juCD0fbv6r
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 15, 2026
In 2026, SportsCenter does not carry nearly the same audience or cultural weight as College GameDay, so it initially felt as though ESPN minimized Johnson’s opposition when compared to the platform Cruz enjoyed on GameDay. But according to Ross Dellenger, ESPN had a legitimate reason behind opting for SportsCenter over GameDay.
“The network discussed having Johnson on GameDay from Oxford this Saturday, but the focus shifted to Tuesday in order to have the conversation before the bill is up for a vote in the Senate,” Dellenger posted Monday.
On Tuesday, Johnson appeared for a six-minute SportsCenter segment with hosts Kevin Negandhi and Christine Williamson.
“It takes away the rights of athletes,” Johnson said of the bill. “It creates an opportunity for the sports leagues to commit what would now be illegal acts because they would have exemption from antitrust legislation. It’s pretty bad, and it’s unfortunate that players have been able to benefit from their ability on the field, and now, that [would be] taken away.”
Negandhi cited proponents of the bill believing it would bring “stability and order to a current system that feels chaotic” before asking Johnson how he would like to achieve stability without stripping athletes’ rights.
“Well, who says there’s instability?” Johnson said. “You have coaches who have been doing this for decades now, and unfortunately, the players did not have the same rights. Now that players have rights, they’re saying it’s unstable. It’s nothing unstable with students being able to collectively bargain. There’s nothing unstable with students not being exploited on the field. There’s nothing unstable with there being true opportunities for families to benefit from the skill that their children are displaying on the basketball court of the football field.”
Williamson surfaced that “the compensation that student-athletes receive in the proposed PCSA is higher than the original House settlement” and asked Johnson to address his concerns about athlete compensation. Johnson politely dismissed the framing and posed that the real issue is student-athletes’ ability to collectively bargain and benefit from the “billions of dollars” they generate for universities without restriction.
“At the end of the day, if this was student-centered, students and players should have been at the table, and they were not at the table,” Johnson said.
Negandhi stated that collective bargaining is illegal in some states, and Johnson pushed back. “To be very clear, federal law supersedes state law, and we’re talking about federal legislation, not state law,” Johnson said.
On the subject of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) inclusion in the bill, specifically through the reported “IGNITE HBCUs Sports and Media Act,” Johnson was not impressed. He emphasized that he’s “not fooled by the head fake” of the federal government including HBCUs, which have been “neglected […] for decades,” at “the last minute.”
“We should not be tokenizing our Historically Black Colleges and Universities in order for the major colleges and universities to generate $14 billion in revenue annually,” Johnson said.
When asked for his opinion on guardrails to protect athletes, Johnson did not stutter:
“First of all, athletes should have a voice in the process. Secondly, they should be able to collectively bargain. Thirdly, schools should not have undue influence over whether or not a child can participate in the terms.” They should be provided medical support far past their college years. They should not lose scholarships for their education if they get injured.
There’s so many things that should be in this bill to protect the players, which is the ecosystem. Here are the individuals who are on the field, generating the revenue, creating the crowd excitement, yet they are left out.
And the chaotic nature is something that is a great statement, but it’s not true. I watched college football this weekend. Every stand of every game I watched was full. People were excited. The game is as rich as it has ever been. TV revenue is up. So, there’s no instability in the game. There’s just greed by the conferences.”
Elsewhere Tuesday, the Protect College Sports Act passed with flying colors in a procedural first vote, as reported by Dellenger, but a final vote still looms large. Regardless, the past two weeks would suggest that College GameDay will continue to weigh in, with President Donald Trump rumored to eventually sign the bill on set.
About Megan Armstrong
Since first getting published as a student by the Kansas City Star in 2013, Megan Armstrong has gone wherever curiosity and stories have taken her, specializing in sports, media, music, and culture coverage. She also has an extensive background in interviewing and profiling public figures. Her work has appeared in Billboard, Boardroom, Bleacher Report, Esquire, GQ, GRAMMY.com, NYLON, Newsweek, Teen Vogue, The Hollywood Reporter, UPROXX, and elsewhere.