Olympic sports at NCAA face cuts after bombshell court ruling
As predicted by several groups of NCAA coaches, major universities are already slashing Olympic sports programs after a recent federal court decision allowing schools to pay student athletes. Last week, U.S. Judge Claudia Wilken approved a $2.8 billion settlement nearly five years after Arizona State swimmer Grant House sued the NCAA to lift restrictions on revenue sharing. Wilken's approval permits schools to share up to $20.5 million with athletes over the next year, while also allowing $2.7 billion to be paid to former players previously barred from receiving such payments.
Although one of House's attorneys described the ruling as 'a fantastic win for hundreds of thousands of college athletes,' there remain concerns about the future of non-revenue and Olympic sports, such as track and field or wrestling. Those fears appeared to come to fruition on Tuesday as Washington State drastically consolidated its track-and-field program and the University of Louisiana Monroe cut its women's tennis team entirely.
In total, 32 Division I Olympic sports programs have been slashed since May, when the House settlement was first announced. And that doesn't include St. Francis, a Pennsylvania college that recently announced its decision to move from Division I to Division III in anticipation of the new financial landscape in college sports. Last week, critics predicted the ruling would lead sports programs being cut by schools.
'We are concerned that the new financial obligations placed on schools will force administrators to divert their attention and resources away from non-football and non-basketball sports – the programs where the majority of NCAA student-athletes participate,' the coaching associations for volleyball, wrestling, track and field, and swimming and diving wrote in last week's statement. 'This is no hypothetical. Budget cuts and program eliminations have already taken place in anticipation of today's outcome, and more are likely to follow.'
The next programs to face the chopping block could be track-and-field or swimming-and-diving teams, as US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association representative Nick Lieggi told Front Office Sports.
'Schools can drop their jumping and throwing program or their diving program, getting rid of the relevant coaches and athletes, without having to worry about their sport sponsorship numbers,' Lieggi said.
The exact impact of the court ruling on NCAA sports is difficult to quantify. Neither Washington State nor Louisiana Monroe blamed it for their respective cost-cutting moves, although both are impacted by the ruling.
Coaching associations in the Olympic sports, such as tennis or track, are continuing to fight this trend. According to FOS, several have hired lobbying firm FGS Global to work on their behalf. 'Congress must intervene to address these pressing issues and ensure a balanced, equitable path forward for all student-athletes, including the protection of existing requirements of schools to maintain robust sport sponsorship and meaningful allocation of resources for non-football and non-basketball programs,' read an FGS Global statement following last week's ruling.
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