Billionaire Texas Tech booster and college sports lobbyist Cody Campbell has bought airtime for a new ad making the case that Congress can “save college sports” by changing the law and allowing one national college sports television package, rather than the piecemeal conference-specific deals of today.
In the ad, Campbell says the goal is to earn more revenue in order to fund women’s and Olympic sports. He told Front Office Sports that it will air during college football games this weekend on the very networks targeted by his pitch: ESPN and Fox. (The two networks have shelled out billions in media rights for the SEC and the Big Ten, as well as the ACC, Big 12, and others.)
Campbell purchased spots to air the ad during both Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff and ESPN’s College GameDay, as well as “pretty much all of the games on Saturday,” he told FOS.
Campbell, a former Texas Tech football player who made his fortune in the oil and natural gas industry, previously told FOS took an interest in college sports policy after his involvement in The Matador Club, Texas Tech’s powerhouse NIL (name, image, and likeness) collective. Campbell is also close to President Donald Trump through the America First Policy Institute and has been advising the administration on college sports policy issues.
Campbell launched a 501(c)(4) organization called “Saving College Sports” earlier this year. Self-funded by Campbell, Saving College Sports paid for the ad and has already spent six figures in congressional lobbying. The organization has a full-time staff, led by executive director David Polyansky, a Republican strategist and former chief of staff for Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee and has been heavily involved in Senate debates on college sports.
The new ad opens with Campbell walking on a field holding a football. “Dramatic changes are causing nearly every athletic department to operate in the red, forcing cuts, putting women’s sports and Olympic dreams in immediate danger,” he says.
The ad says that the solution is for Congress to change the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. The law gave professional sports leagues an antitrust exemption to pool their media rights and sell them as one bundle, rather than piecemeal by team or division.
An amendment to the Sports Broadcasting Act would overrule a 1984 Supreme Court decision that found NCAA had an illegal monopoly over television rights, effectively giving schools and conferences the power that has led them to sell billion-dollar packages and constantly realign conferences. (The NCAA now only owns championship media rights, like men’s and women’s March Madness.)
Campbell believes that the money generated by one football TV deal—illegal under current law—would be worth even more than the billions of all the conference deals put together. In his ideal world, the deals would be struck with a new organization called the United States Collegiate Athletics Corporation, which would then send money back to schools to fund sports purportedly endangered by the costs of modern college sports.
There is currently one bill ready to be introduced to the House floor for a vote, but the SCORE ACT is mostly concerned with NCAA priorities like blocking athletes from becoming employees. Though Campbell supports that goal, his changes to the Sports Broadcasting Act are not included in the bill—yet.
As for whether he intends to run more ads on college football Saturdays this season, Campbell says: “We definitely will.”
