NCAA lawsuit, college football will have big impact on Olympic sports – Selambe

Many of the participants at the USA Swimming Olympic trials currently underway up Interstate 65 in Indianapolis are the same who compete with — insert your favorite college team here — the three years between the Summer Games.

NCAA Division I colleges and universities have long been the pipeline for Team USA greatness, providing the funding and resources for athletes to train as well as the avenue to compete.

At least, for as long as college football’s economic engine that drives most athletic departments was willing to fund those non-revenue Olympic sports. The tolerance level for doing so might dry up soon.

The potential of major college football programs to break away from the NCAA and form their own Super League in the near future is very real. Watching the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference morph into the Power Two; the Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 fall further behind in revenue; and the death of the Pac-12 is really just one step short of it coming to fruition.

As football drives college sports closer to a true professional model, the future of the Olympic sports that fuel the U.S. national teams are in doubt.

Funding from the federal government to the NCAA for Olympic sports may be the only way to help stop the potential disaster. Otherwise, the burden is going to continue to fall on the schools themselves and who knows what the outcome will be.

With payments to athletes looming on the horizon, athletic departments have to figure out where they’re going to get the money to — not only pay their players, but ensure they’re competitive in the market to attract the best recruits.

Downsizing is the unspoken, but dirty word looming at the tip of more than one athletics director’s tongue.

As Stanford joins Louisville’s schedule as a new member of the ACC this coming season, it does so carrying 36 sports. In the post-pandemic fallout, Stanford announced it was going to cut 11 of those sports — including wrestling, men’s volleyball, field hockey and men’s and women’s fencing — in July of 2020.

The school reversed course in May 2021, thanks in large part to private donations helping to self-fund or endow some of those sports, but the entire episode speaks to just how fragile their existence is.

Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart hinted at how delicate the balance is during the SEC meetings last month. UK fields teams in 23 sports, which is the most of any school in the SEC.

Having to factor in sharing revenue with athletes will pose many questions including what area is the lowest priority. Does that mean facility upgrades, recruiting travel, or will it be as big as cutting sports?

“The Division I varsity athletes that we’ve got — 675 of those — the opportunity to keep as many young people in our program as I can and keep those programs viable, is important to me,” Barnhart said.

It’s important for the U.S. of A, too.

Consider this: 211 individuals on Team USA that medaled in the Tokyo Olympics were either current or former NCAA athletes. Another 71 medalists for other countries were also NCAA alums.

Now take all those individual medals won in team sports like basketball and condense them to only count as one medal for the sake of comparison. If current and former NCAA athletes were considered a nation in itself, it would have accounted for 124 medals won which is still more than any country in the world. The U.S. had 113 and China was second with 88.

There’s tremendous national pride that comes with winning at the Olympics. But if the NCAA’s de facto farm system for developing athletes can no longer be counted on to do it, Uncle Sam might have to pony up to ensure the U.S. continues to compete at the highest level.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.