College athletics are changing. With recent developments such as athletes’ potential to earn money through their name, image, and likeness (NIL) as well as a shifting conference landscape, athletic programs across the country are rushing to keep up with all the changes.
As is the way with any business, funds have to be allocated appropriately. In college athletics, this often means perks enjoyed by the money-makers, such as football and basketball, are not enjoyed in the same way by sports that don’t make money for the school, like swimming.
Additionally, as a result of the House vs. NCAA case, college sports are seeing a major increase in their scholarship limits nearly across the board. Men’s swimming will see an increase from 9.9 to 30 while women’s swimming will see an increase from 14 to 30.
While this sounds promising, there is no guarantee that all these scholarships will be utilized each year. The scholarship increase came about because athletes can now be paid directly by their school, eliminating the need to have a strict limit on the number of scholarships.
Another adjustment resulting from the House case is the advent of athletes’ ability to enjoy revenue-sharing based on the financial success of their program. One of the potential consequences of this, however, is the effect this will have on how scholarships offered by the universities are truly allocated between programs.
Athletic directors around the country have started discussing what this will mean for all their programs, with Ohio State and TCU taking the stage this week.
TCU AD Nonati Comments on Changing Landscape
This week, coming on the heels of Ohio State AD’s comments about expecting roster cuts, TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati held a press conference where he discussed how the NCAA settlement and coming scholarship expansion will be affecting other programs—namely, Olympic programs like swimming.
Donati did not definitively say that there would be scholarship reductions in these smaller sports, but he did say that the expanding scholarships for football, baseball, and basketball “will need to come from somewhere.”
“The plan is not to add new scholarships, it’s potentially reallocating them. We’re going to be focused primarily on putting the $21 million of revenue share in the hands of the student-athletes.” However, he also noted, “the revenue should be commensurate with the programs that generate revenue.”
“We have no plan to eliminate sports right now,” Donati stated, “however, I can tell you that they’re probably going to look different.”
“The irony of this House case is [Grant] House was a swimmer at Arizona State, he was from a non-revenue sport. I don’t think if he were sitting here in this room this is the outcome he probably would have imagined… I’m not throwing jabs… that’s just where we are at.”
Undeniably, there will be major changes coming each year as athletic departments work to balance revenue, scholarships, and student-athletes’ well-being. Donati reiterated that while there is no imminent change coming for TCU, he said of the future: “Changes are coming.”
The full press conference can be seen here.
The year is 2028 and the GOP controlled congress is launching an investigation into how woke (well it’ll likely be something else by that point) destroyed the American college sports system resulting in a poor american performance at LA…
Why are we in the darkest timeline what did I do?
Always funny for people to blame Grant House (as part of a class action lawsuit) for being the last straw that broke the camels back on the NCAA’s ridiculous claims of amatuerism finally getting put to bed. It was illegal and wrong for a long time and if they really don’t value these sports than swimming and other “non-revenue” sports will need to adapt. Personally I think it’s good that student-athletes are going to be treated more honestly, both in “good” and “bad” ways
Interesting press conference. My question based on what AD stated: What 6 sports are revenue generating at TCU. I can see football, men’s basketball, possible baseball. The next question is what definition are they using for “revenue generating”, for example, is revenue any incoming monies, tickets etc? or is revenue profit making after expenses?
With the hype around women’s march madness last year I wouldn’t be surprised if their women’s basketball made money. Don’t know much about what Texans are into, but my local college women’s volleyball team seems to fill seats pretty well too.
Football, basketball, volleyball, baseball, softball, soccer are the sports that I have seen charge admission at larger schools.
I see this question about revenue generating a lot, but I assume that it’s much less ambiguous than people try to make it.
Programs that generate revenue for the athletics department. AKA they produce significant ticket sales and/or sponsorships, without regard to profit. Revenue and profit are not the same thing, and I think most ADs understand that. Each school will have a different definition of “revenue generating” thresholds.
At most D1 schools, that list comes from the beneath:
-Football
-Men’s basketball
-Women’s basketball
-Baseball
-Softball
-Men’s soccer
-Women’s soccer
-Men’s lacrosse
-Women’s gymnastics
-Men’s ice hockey
-Women’s ice hockey
There are probably a handful of sports that count as… Read more »
I wonder how scholarship numbers and operating cost play into this. Gotta believe those sports they sell tickets to are fully funded (minus Track & Field) so how much revenue do they actually generate.
Again, you’re confusing ‘revenue’ and ‘profit.’
He’s talking about revenue generating, not profit-generating. A sport that generates revenue provides potential, even if not profit, to cover their bills.
If volleyball sells 2,500 tickets a game, that’s a start, something that could be built upon to 5,000 tickets a game or 10,000 tickets a game.
Right now, swimming is trying to get over a hurdle where fans have a meltdown if they have to pay a $10 subscription to watch both NCAA Championships.
There are 6 sports on the TCU athletics website with links to “purchase tickets online” (a little ticket icon). I assume those are the sports he’s talking about (at least, at his university):
Men’s Baseball
Men’s Basketball
Men’s Football
Women’s Basketball
Women’s Soccer
Women’s Volleyball
time to separate the college from athletics
Oh thats coming Private equity gets involved, college football representing a school will be in name only.
Since DII and DIII don’t have to comply with NIL, those two divisions will become more and more competitive when DI schools start dropping programs and have fewer opportunities for Olympic sports.
That’s nice in theory but what you may see is more of the mid major D1 level kids decide they don’t want to swim if it’s not D1.
I think you hit the nail on the head and the trickle down effect will be less interest in swimming at a young age. And parents who sacrifice a lot to transport their children to practice in the early morning and evening hours and spend hours upon hours at weekend meets will be less inclined to get their children involved with less scholarship money as a “carrot” being held out for swimming in college. Division III does not offer athletic aid so there isn’t going to be a huge increase in numbers there (maybe a couple of percentage points). And how many Division II schools are truly fully funded for Swimming & Diving?
I don’t see parents looking at number of college opportunities when choosing sports for their 5 yr old.
But they might be when deciding if they are going to invest thousands a year for their middle schooler/high schooler to swim club.
Parents are delusional enough about their kids’ prospects that they will think their kid can do D1 no matter what.
Why aren’t these ADs ever asked about reducing the administrative bloat within athletics departments as a way to increase revenue for athletes in revenue-generating sports and opportunities for athletes who aren’t? They seem to think there’s only one way forward.
If you’ve ever been in business you unfortunately know the answer. The people at the top do not feel any crunch when forced to deal with budget issues. College sports is now only a business and will be run like one
This is a good experiment.
Here is the TCU athletics directory: https://gofrogs.com/staff-directory
Go through and tell me which positions you would cut, what you think their salaries are, and why you think they could be cut without impacting programming. TCU has 21 varsity programs, about 630 student-athletes, and 258 staffers. Some of those people are probably underpaid and underworked. Many of them are overpaid and overworked.
My hypothesis is that there is administrative bloat, and you could probably cut 5-10 folks and save a cost load (including benefits) of $300,000-$600,000 on a $140 million/year budget without impacting programs that student-athletes like or programs that are needed to fund athletics. Maybe in a few years… Read more »
Um, no, the 30-scholarship cap does not “sound promising” for swimming. At all. As the TCU AD notes – the extra spending on football and basketball “has to come from somewhere.” There’s going to be LESS money for swimming; not more.
The scholarship caps are meaningless. It will be interesting to see what individual schools do with their roster caps.
Dude said the quiet part out loud with his full chest on the House decision.