Tommy Tuberville boasts new bill will fix ’80 percent’ of NIL, transfer issues
On Tuesday, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville introduced a new college sports bill. The bill would set eligibility limits at a max of 5 consecutive years to play 5 consecutive seasons.
If the bill passed, athletes would be allowed to transfer once without penalty, but must sit one year for every ensuing transfer. Tuberville discussed his proposed bill in a post to X. SUBSCRIBE to the On3 NIL and Sports Business Newsletter “The transfer portal has screwed up college sports.
My bill is simple: you get 5 consecutive years to play 5 seasons and you get 1 transfer. After that, if you transfer again, you sit out a year. This will fix 80% of the issues in NIL today,” Tuberville wrote.
Tuberville, who is a Republican, defeated Democratic incumbent Doug Jones by over 20 points in the 2020 election. He became Alabama’s senior senator in 2023 when Senator Richard Shelby retired. Tuberville is a member of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Committee on Armed Services; Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; and Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
In May 2025, Tuberville announced his plan to run for Alabama governor. “Sixty to seventy percent of them (college programs) don’t even look at high school athletes, they look at the portal and say ‘How can we win now? How can we bring players in?