The recent House vs. NCAA settlement will change the landscape – and possibly water-scape of NCAA sports in the future.
The settlement will distribute $2.8 billion in NIL backpay to athletes and sets up a plan for future athlete-revenue sharing, a huge step in athlete compensation for all of the revenue they generate for their schools. The NCAA will have to pay about 40% of the settlement, according to reports, but the rest of the financial compensation will come from NCAA member universities.
That means a lot of money heading to athletes – money that wasn’t expected in the budget moving forward.
According to documents obtained by CBS Sports, athletic departments must now prepare for up to $30 million annually as the richest schools prepare to share upwards of $22 million in revenue with players while expanding roster sizes with unlimited scholarships, according to those documents.
So what does that mean for swimming and smaller sports?
As the landscape of college sports changes, smaller sports could be in danger as schools scramble to figure out where to cut budgets to be able to pay their share of the settlement.
That means everything besides football and basketball could be in danger.
And with the settlement including unlimited scholarships, there could be big pros and big cons in a sport like swimming and diving. Schools could offer more full scholarships to swimmers, but also take away scholarships to save money.
Yes this is a knee-jerk reaction, and many schools will be able to handle the financial changes, but as we have seen from all the conference switching, schools will make the best financial decisions they can.
We have seen swimming programs in Power 5 programs cut in the past few years and that might get worse with this settlement.
Many questions still remain, but this could be the most pivotal time in the history of college swimming and diving.
Much like Title IX before it, I’m afraid the devil will be in the details. It was great for womens sports of course and long overdue, but the fine print led to many mens swimming and polo teams getting cut to make way for the new womens sports. We all envisioned the adding of those ladies athletics, but in reality it cut established mens sports to make way for them. This new paradigm may go all the way and both mens and womens swimming and minor sports may have seen their last days at many colleges..