Newly uncovered public records obtained by Tomahawk Nation through a public-records request directed to Clemson University have laid bare the extensive, behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign waged by the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) to shape the federal Protect College Sports Act (PCSA).
While the ACC has previously maintained that it merely offered feedback during the legislative drafting process without maintaining direct control over the bill’s statutory language, internal memos, emails, and briefing documents tell a vastly different story. The newly analyzed records demonstrate that the conference engaged in micro-level lobbying, actively drafted and submitted statutory amendments directly to Senate committee staff, mobilized its 18 university presidents and chancellors to present a unified political front, and successfully secured specific carved-out text changes. At the same time, the documents reveal the limits of the conference’s influence, detailing provisions where lawmakers flatly rejected ACC amendments regarding antitrust immunity, private rights of action, and sovereign immunity.
This investigative report breaks down the inner workings of the ACC’s legislative strategy during the summer months leading up to key Senate votes. It examines how university leadership leveraged high-level political connections, how proposed statutory language was funneled directly to Capitol Hill power brokers, and how the conference navigated contentious provisions regarding Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) standards, revenue-sharing caps, and major-conference anti-merger regulations.
Detailed Chronology: From Draft Letters to Capitol Hill Submissions
The lifecycle of the ACC’s legislative intervention on the Protect College Sports Act followed a meticulously coordinated timeline, transitioning from internal consensus-building to direct interactions with federal lawmakers and committee staffers.
May 31 – June 3: Securing Presidential Buy-In
The legislative strategy began in earnest on May 31, when ACC Chief Legal Officer Pearlynn Houck distributed an urgent email to conference presidents and chancellors. Attached was a draft letter addressed to key congressional leaders, specifically Sens. Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell.
According to Houck, the correspondence had been commissioned directly by ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips. Its primary function was twofold: to provide public political backing for the bipartisan legislative vehicle and to formally establish the commitment of all 18 ACC member institutions to work hand-in-hand with lawmakers as the bill advanced through committees.
Concurrently, the conference office distributed a privileged, confidential analysis of the PCSA text to member presidents, general counsels, and government-relations personnel. Houck noted that this network would aggregate institutional feedback to isolate high-priority bargaining chips for the conference as the legislative vehicle matured.
By June 1, the finalized support letter was recirculated for formal institutional signatures. The resulting document carried the authoritative signatures of all 18 ACC university presidents and chancellors—including prominent executives such as Florida State President Richard McCullough and Clemson Interim President Robert Jones. The coordinated package was delivered directly to Sens. Cruz and Cantwell just ahead of a critical June 3 Senate hearing, projecting an image of monolithic institutional alignment.
June 16: The "ACC-Requested" Revisions
As the legislative text evolved through June, internal conference trackers began taking credit for specific textual modifications. On June 16, ACC Chief Governance & Compliance Officer Brad Hostetter distributed an internal briefing titled "Summary of Key PCSA Changes ANS 6-16-26" to government-relations personnel across the conference footprint.
The document spotlighted two major modifications explicitly categorized as "ACC-Requested" changes:
- Section 114 Revisions: The bill completely eliminated a prior requirement mandating that institutional NIL agreements satisfy a rigorous "valid business purpose" standard alongside strict range-of-compensation ceilings. The ACC internal tracker formally claimed this deregulatory win as its own.
- Section 101 Reporting Deadlines: The statutory timeline compelling student-athletes to formally disclose third-party NIL agreements to their respective universities was dramatically compressed to a strict five-day window—another change explicitly credited to ACC lobbying pressure.
July 1 – July 16: Lobbying Tactics and Personal Connections
By early July, the conference expanded its lobbying footprint. In a July 1 email, Hostetter updated government-relations directors, confirming that conference representatives had delivered direct suggestions to both majority and minority committee staff and were actively awaiting counter-feedback.
Mid-July correspondence revealed the granular, relationship-driven nature of collegiate athletics lobbying. On July 16, Victoria Barker Busch, an attorney with DLA Piper, emailed Clemson government-relations official Mark Cothran to preview an upcoming trip to Washington by Commissioner Phillips, noting that the ACC intended to schedule face-to-face meetings with members of Congress whose districts overlapped with the conference footprint.
Cothran’s response provided a masterclass in collegiate lobbying leverage. He noted that the Southeastern Conference (SEC) had recently met with the staff of Sen. Tim Scott, furnishing congressional aides with a redlined statutory draft alongside a 10-point memorandum of concerns. Crucially, Cothran identified Evan Jenkins and Josh Grant as the primary Senate staffers handling the PCSA dossier for Sen. Scott, highlighting that Jenkins was a proud Clemson alumnus.
"All of our previous collegiate athletic conversations have occurred with Evan given the Clemson connection," Cothran wrote, outlining plans to quickly engage Scott’s office.
Cothran went a step further, offering an intimate personal connection to sway the senator: Sen. Scott’s stepdaughter was preparing to matriculate at Clemson, and the senator was already utilizing a "Clemson Dad" coffee mug in his daily routine.
"If Commissioner Phillips gets in front of him, it may be worth mentioning," Cothran advised.
The strategy bore fruit. Eight days later, Clemson Interim President Robert Jones emailed Commissioner Phillips to confirm that athletic director Graham Neff had successfully coordinated Clemson’s institutional support for the emerging Cantwell-Cruz legislative vehicle. Ultimately, Sen. Scott cast decisive "yes" votes across all five procedural roll calls required to advance the PCSA on the Senate floor.
July 30 – September 22: Direct Statutory Drafting and Staff Pushback
By late July, the wall separating legislative drafters and athletic lobbyists had effectively vanished. On July 30, Senate Commerce Committee Staff Director Brad Grantz issued a formal follow-up to his infamous "Pencils Are Down" directive, transmitting messages directly to the executive heads of major athletics governance structures: ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti, Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark, and Notre Dame Athletic Director Peter Bevacqua.
Grantz’s correspondence addressed contentious language concerning how the legislation treated NIL disbursements originating from associated corporate entities. Grantz noted that the text already counted such arrangements against statutory revenue-sharing caps and granted enforcement jurisdiction to the NCAA and the College Sports Commission. However, he explicitly acknowledged that "the A4, Notre Dame and CSC" had transmitted a joint memo late the previous night demanding explicit statutory text cementing this interpretation.
While major conference executives pushed for explicit codification, Grantz pushed back, arguing that the legislation already achieved their desired policy outcome without redundant text. Despite this pushback, coordinated pressure ultimately won out: on September 22, Sens. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville formally introduced a statutory amendment that explicitly clarified that associated-entity NIL payments count directly against institutional revenue-sharing limits.
Supporting Context & Metrics: Where Lobbying Fell Short
While the ACC chalked up several legislative victories, internal summary documents dated August 5 ("S. 4668 – Protect College Sports Act of 2026, Section-by-Section Summary") highlight significant policy areas where lawmakers explicitly rejected conference appeals.
- Broad Antitrust Immunity: The ACC formally communicated its preference for sweeping, unyielding antitrust immunity designed to insulate the enterprise from legal challenges targeting anti-circumvention rules surrounding NIL. While conference officials provided comprehensive suggested text, internal memos conceded that further statutory movement on this front was unlikely. Prominent collegiate sports attorney Mit Winter sharply criticized these provisions in a September public critique, arguing that the PCSA’s core legislative purpose was simply to "allow the NCAA to go back to engaging in illegal cartel behavior w/o consequence," reducing other regulatory provisions to mere political window dressing.
- Private Right of Action & Sovereign Immunity: Section 119 of the draft bill proved to be a major friction point. The ACC warned bill sponsors that the inclusion of a private right of action would directly undermine mandatory arbitration clauses embedded within institutional athletic agreements. Furthermore, the conference cautioned that the text could inadvertently waive sovereign immunity protections for public research universities, recommending that any resulting litigation be strictly bottlenecked into federal court. The resulting legislative ledger documented a blunt congressional response: "No changes accepted to this provision."
- Unsolicited Medical Hardship Waivers: Adding to the bureaucratic friction, a July 30 analysis revealed that Congress inserted permissive statutory language allowing the NCAA to craft exemptions to the five-year eligibility rule in cases of severe medical hardship—a policy addition the conference dryly noted, "is not something we asked for."
Section 205: The "Super League" and Anti-Merger Regulations
Section 205 of the PCSA introduced strict legislative parameters governing major conference mergers, acquisitions, and the formation of breakaway "super leagues."
According to ACC compliance documents, the legislation initially capped A4 conference membership at 19 institutions, heavily restricting inter-conference migration for schools that had held membership in an A4 conference within the preceding five years. Conversely, the framework permitted Group of Six (G6) institutions to graduate into the A4 tier, provided the 19-member hard cap was respected.
Internal conference summaries explicitly noted:
"The anti-merger and acquisition provisions were expanded to include the ACC and revised to allow some G6 movement, but little A4 movement."
Furthermore, the statutory language prohibited third-party private equity entities from consolidating collegiate media rights to construct an independent "super league."
As negotiations matured through the late summer, the waiting period for inter-A4 conference movement was compressed from five years to three years, with a sunset provision scheduled to expire six years post-enactment. However, the strict 19-school ceiling remained intact. Efforts by Florida lawmakers—including a proposed 180-day exemption pushed by Florida Sen. Ashley Moody to bypass the Section 205 waiting period—were ultimately stripped from the September 17 substitute bill. This development sparked intense behind-the-scenes pushback from officials across at least five ACC member institutions, including Clemson and Florida State, who raised red flags with congressional delegations regarding conference stability.
Official Statements and Institutional Silence
The mechanics of the ACC’s lobbying apparatus reveal a high-stakes ecosystem where university presidents act as political conduits for athletic executives, and outside legal counsel coordinate seamlessly with institutional government-relations directors.
Following the public release of the Clemson University records, Tomahawk Nation submitted a formal series of investigative inquiries to the ACC conference office. The press queries sought clarification on several core operational matters:
- Did the conference formally draft and direct the specific statutory changes identified internally as "ACC-Requested"?
- What was the exact protocol utilized to authorize these lobbying positions on behalf of all 18 autonomous member institutions?
- What role did Commissioner Jim Phillips play in drafting text submitted directly to Senate Commerce Committee staffers?
- Did Commissioner Phillips ultimately execute a direct meeting with Sen. Tim Scott regarding the PCSA?
As of publication, the Atlantic Coast Conference has declined to respond to all inquiries.
Future Outlook
The release of these public records shatters the illusion that collegiate athletic conferences operate merely as passive observers reacting to federal policymaking. Instead, the documents prove that organizations like the ACC function as sophisticated, aggressive political interest groups capable of mobilizing institutional presidents, drafting statutory language, and engaging in high-level congressional horse-trading.
As the Protect College Sports Act navigates its remaining legislative hurdles—moving from the Senate toward a contentious battle in the House of Representatives—the fallout from these disclosures will likely reverberate across collegiate athletics. The internal friction documented between ACC leadership, member schools like Florida State and Clemson, and federal lawmakers underscores the fragile political coalitions holding modern college sports together.
With the future of antitrust exemptions, revenue-sharing caps, and institutional stability hanging in the balance, conferences will undoubtedly continue their aggressive lobbying footprint. However, the public exposure of these internal playbooks ensures that future legislative maneuvering will face unprecedented public scrutiny from journalists, legal scholars, and rival stakeholders alike.
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