Chris Murphy is a huge UConn Huskies fan.

But Connecticut’s junior senator is at-odds with men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley over the Protect College Sports Act, a controversial bill to reign-in the multimillion-dollar bidding wars that have overtaken college athletics in the Name Image and Likeness era.

College sports are big business in the Nutmeg State – especially basketball. The men’s team, which won back-to-back national titles in 2023 and 2024, generated nearly $12 million last year. The women’s squad – which has won a dozen national championships, including in 2025 – brought in $8.5 million. But those players now come at a cost.

Following a landmark Supreme Court ruling, the NCAA allowed athletes to get paid and transfer to other schools, leading to expensive bidding wars for top players – who might leave for a better offer after a year.

“If a player comes in and you need $3 million and the school doesn’t have it, then you have private equity,” said Dr. Don McAulay, a sports management expert at Quinnipiac University. “So the question is, when that player leaves, do you have to keep getting in a bidding war?”

The Protect College Sports Act, which passed the U.S. Senate in a bipartisan 74-24 vote last month, would let schools more than double payments to athletes to $49 million. In return, players would face age limits and be limited to one transfer. Predatory sports agent fees would be capped as well, similar to professional sports leagues.

Hurley is backing the bill.

"We need something, even if it's not perfect. We can't go on like this," Hurley recently told reporters. “I just heard for so many years that the players needed to get paid, and that the players needed an ability to transfer. The bill allows for both of those things to happen.”

The NCAA is pushing the legislation too, calling the current system a "crisis" that could dry up funding for dozens of other sports that generate little revenue.

“My program might not be here next year,” a Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. volleyball player says in a new ad.

But Murphy and Sen. Richard Blumenthal both voted against the PCSA, arguing that it locks in a system that exploits student athletes.

“College sports is growing, both on the men’s and women’s side,” Murphy said. “And so, what is this crisis?”

The Democratic senator noted that the Southeastern Conference and the Big 10 generated more than $1 billion last year, with much of the money going to coaches’ salaries and new athletic facilities.

“The crisis, it appears to me, is pretty simple,” Murphy said. “Young athletes who perform a service that would be worth billions in the free market are finally getting what they lawfully deserve.”

Blumenthal also thinks the bill is bad for smaller schools like UConn.

“Legislation should promote vigorous competition among teams and conferences, not preserve the exclusive club of the current Power Four membership,” the senator said in an August Hartford Courant editorial. “While the UConn Huskies men’s and women’s basketball teams know the thrill of national championships, our football fans are more acquainted with the highs-and-lows of an upstart contender and an uphill battle.”

Despite Blumenthal’s concerns, McAulay thinks the Huskies are in a better position than many schools – at least when it comes to basketball.

“UConn is a storied program,” he said. “Hurley family, [women’s coach] Geno [Auriemma], I think that, having that, players want to still play for those legacy programs. And so, it’s not a dollar amount conversation.”

Blumenthal was also able to add an amendment making it easier for UConn to join a “Power 4” conference like the SEC, Big 10 or Atlantic Coast Conference. The bill also limits major conference mergers for the next several years.

The Protect College Sports Act now heads to the U.S. House of Representatives, where changes are likely to the payment caps for players.

Time is running out though. If it doesn’t pass both chambers by the end of this year, Congress has to start all over again.