Surging Support to Save College Sports, plus Mollie Hemingway on the Great Justice Sam Alito
Verdict with Ted Cruz
Premiere Networks
4.6 • 43.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 June 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
1. 🏈 College Sports Crisis & Proposed Legislation Core Argument
- The NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) system
- An unregulated transfer portal
- Escalating player compensation costs
- Financial losses across athletic programs
Key Problems Identified
- Athletes transferring multiple times with little restriction
- Older players (mid-to-late 20s) still competing
- Universities losing millions or tens of millions of dollars
- Non-revenue sports (e.g., tennis, Olympic sports) being cut
- Risk of college sports shrinking to mostly football and basketball
Proposed Solution
A bipartisan bill called the “Protect College Sports Act.”
- Supported by both Republicans and Democrats
- Backed by universities, conferences, and athletic leaders
- Intended to:
- Stabilize college athletics
- Limit financial chaos
- Preserve broad participation across sports
Broader Significance
- Provide education access to hundreds of thousands of students
- Offer life opportunities, especially for low-income athletes
- Serve as a cultural unifier in a divided country
2. ⚖️ Supreme Court Discussion & Justice Samuel Alito Guest Segment
Key Discussion Points A. Justice Alito’s Role
- Portrayed as a major figure (“giant”) on the Supreme Court
- Known for a distinct form of originalism (interpreting the Constitution as originally understood)
- Seen as influential in shaping modern constitutional law
B. Dobbs Decision & Leak Controversy
- The leak investigation was poorly conducted
- The leak damaged trust within the Court
- It may have endangered justices (mentions threats and an assassination attempt)
- The unprecedented nature of the leak
- The political consequences surrounding abortion and the Court
C. Internal Court Dynamics
- Tensions between justices
- Allegations of “slow-walking” decisions for political purposes
- Strategic disagreements between conservative and liberal justices
D. Criticism of the Political Left
- There are organized efforts to undermine the Supreme Court
- Calls to expand (“pack”) the Court are politically motivated
- Media and advocacy groups are targeting conservative justices
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. Welcome, it is Vertiquist Center, Ted Cruz. Ben Ferguson with you. And if you're listening on radio stations across the country, it's really nice to have you with us. And a reminder, we do this show as a podcast three days a week. So make sure you download Verdict with Ted Cruz wherever you get your podcast in this episode, and many of them are also on YouTube as well. so you can subscribe to the YouTube channel, Vertic with Ted Cruz, wherever you get your podcast in this episode, and many of them are also on YouTube |
| 0:21.2 | as well, so you can subscribe to the YouTube channel, Verdict with Ted Cruz there, and you can watch |
| 0:25.8 | every single episode. Senator, we've got a lot to talk about, including big news for the sports |
| 0:30.7 | world, and we've got some Supreme Court news coming up as well in the show. Well, this week, |
| 0:35.2 | I shared a hearing on college sports and saving college sports. And |
| 0:39.7 | we've talked before on verdict about how college sports is in crisis right now. It is chaos. |
| 0:44.3 | You've got an out of control transfer portal with athletes transferring three, four, five times. |
| 0:49.8 | You've got people playing until they're 26, 27, 28 years old. You've got people with six, seven years |
| 0:55.8 | of playing time. You have virtually every athletics program in the country losing money and |
| 1:02.1 | losing millions or even tens of millions of dollars. Schools are going broke. They're |
| 1:05.9 | canceling programs every week. You're seeing women's sports getting canceled. You're seeing |
| 1:10.4 | Olympic sports getting canceled. You're seeing women's sports getting canceled, you're seeing Olympic sports |
| 1:11.2 | getting canceled, you're seeing your favorite tennis getting canceled, that happened at Arkansas |
| 1:15.9 | just a few weeks ago. And it is, if we don't act, we're going to see much of college sports |
| 1:25.6 | decimated and destroyed. And so last week I introduced bipartisan |
| 1:29.3 | legislation with Maria Cantwell. Maria Cantwell is a Democrat from Washington State. She is the |
| 1:34.9 | ranking member, the senior Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee. I'm the chairman of the |
| 1:38.8 | Senate Commerce Committee. This week we had a big hearing. And we heard testimony from leaders in college athletics about the |
| 1:46.5 | urgency of solving the crisis now. One of our witnesses was Coach Nick Sabin, the legendary |
| 1:52.4 | coach of Alabama. And Coach Sabin's testimony was incredibly powerful and give a listen to a little bit of coach |
| 2:01.8 | Nick Saban on why Congress needs to pass our Protect College Sports Act. |
... |
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