“There’s no mood for consolidating more money in Power Two conferences at the expense of all the other conferences and small to mid-size schools because that’s just going to accelerate the trend of cutting Olympic or women’s sports,” said Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), a former Division I volleyball player who sits on the committee of jurisdiction.
E60’s Jeremy Schaap unpacks the seismic shift that has transformed college athletics from an amateur ideal into a high-stakes marketplace.
“The SCORE Act (college sports) is well-intended but falls short and is not ready for prime time. I will vote no,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).
America’s dominance in the Olympics may be impacted by a shakeup in college sports funding, with schools potentially cutting programs.
Roughly 41 Olympic sports programs have been cut across NCAA Division I, affecting at least 1,000 student-athletes after the settlement was announced by the NCAA in May 2024, said Sam Seemes, CEO of the US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
Olympic and non-revenue sports are facing an uncertain — and in many cases, grim — future.
“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 a joint statement after the settlement was approved. “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.”
“Not that anyone listens to my football media days speeches, but in 2019, the line was, ‘When you change the economics of college sports, you alter the Olympic development program in this country,’” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey