Did you feel it? The ground just shifted in U.S. sport
House vs. NCAA will have wide ranging effects on U.S. sport, and not just for colleges. The entire USA Olympic infrastructure could be reshaped.
A proposed settlement in House vs. NCAA, an antitrust action brought by former NCAA athletes who claim the NCAA's rules prohibiting their making money based on name, image, and likeness, will change college sport and send ripples throughout all United States sport contexts. The settlement isn't official until the judge in the case approves it, but as SwimSwam reported it looks like back damages are to be paid to plaintiffs and a revenue-sharing plan will be put in place moving forward:
"The settlement, . . . if approved by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, includes almost $2.8 billion in back damages for lost opportunities from the organization’s past restrictions on name, image, and likeness (NIL). But the more consequential component is a revenue-sharing model that would allow schools to share up to $22 million annually with athletes—essentially a salary cap—likely starting in the fall of 2025."
That's a lot of money that represents an expense schools did not previously have and for which there is no incoming revenue. In other words, collegiate sport programs will get a lot more expensive if the settlement is approved, and, as I write this there's no reason to assume that it won't be.
Pundits speculate that the sudden, additional expense thrust on the affected athletic departments is not good news for Olympic sports, often referred to as non-revenue sports. Adding a giant new expense—sharing up to $22 million per year with athletes on revenue producing teams—will certainly make it harder for schools to keep Olympic sports on campus.
There are so many factors that contribute to the line-up of sport teams sponsored by a school that it's impossible to speak specifically about what a House settlement will mean. Some Olympic sport teams will disappear, probably more than usual. But which teams and where? We won’t know for a while.
The settlement will directly hit schools that generate lots of revenue from premier football and basketball programs. These are the programs that fund other, non-revenue teams on campus. Other schools may not be directly affected because they don't generate much revenue and their athletic programs are considered more of an enrollment tool than a source of income. These schools compete with the powershouses for enrollment and athletes, so they too will need more money, just not as much.
If you read this newsletter regularly you already know this is not simply a college sport issue. All sport contexts in the United States are connected and what affects one will eventually affect all, one way or another. The ripples may not be felt immediately but they will be felt.
The ground on which some sports once stood is shifting. An Olympic sport that depends on the college context for training high performance athletes should be worried right now. The rising cost of operating revenue sports can only increase the pressure on athletic departments to eliminate non-revenue teams to help balance the books.
Opinions on what may be the fallout of this settlement abound, but no one knows for sure what the collegiate sport landscape or the larger infrastructure of United States sport will look like a year or two from now. Assuming that teams, scholarships, and athletes are lost in the aftermath of House, I make the following predictions:
There will be fewer Olympic sport athletes. Already the SEC is discussing putting roster limits in place for some Olympic sports as a result of House. Additionally, no one seems to know how the settlement and Title IX will be reconciled. It's natural to assume that a balance of men's and women's opportunities will be maintained just as it always has. This will put even more pressure on schools to eliminate non-revenue men's teams.
High performance will be affected. It might not be that noticeable at first, but the continuing loss of scholarships and a decrease in the number of participation slots means that fewer athletes will be able to continue their sport participation in college. This will eventually affect high performance levels in U.S. sports, especially those invested in the collegiate context as part of their infrastructure. Swimming, athletics, and a few others, I'm looking at you.
Overall participation in some youth sports may drop. This is just a hunch without any data to back it up, but with some sports losing collegiate opportunities, fewer families will be interested in investing the time and money required to be part of the ever more commercialized youth sport juggernaut. Many more athletes will now see their end-of-career date as their high school graduation. There has always been a big drop in sport participation between high school and college no matter the sport, but because of House this gap will widen.
What are your thoughts about this? I coached in college as a graduate assistant in a Division II school during the 1980s. My focus at the time was mostly just coaching, I didn't get too much into the way the whole infrastructure worked (that came later). Because of this I have no first hand experience in a Division I program where the effect of House will probably be felt first. If any readers have opinions on what happens next I would like to hear from you.