NCAA Settlement Forcing Cuts to College Teams in Olympic Sports

Collegiate Olympic sports face roster and funding cuts or even elimination due to the NCAA’s $2.8 billion antitrust deal allowing colleges to pay student-athletes directly for the first time, athletes and coaches said.

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.

“More are likely to follow,” four coaches’ associations for Olympic sports wrote in a statement.

Under the $2.8 billion deal approved June 6 by a federal judge, schools in what had been the five most historically competitive NCAA conferences can share payments worth up to 22% of their average athletic revenue, which is projected to be roughly $20 million per school annually.

Over a 10-year period, the NCAA and the conferences will pay $2.75 billion in back damages to thousands of Division I athletes who played since 2016.

The deal is likely to leave schools facing deficits and hurt sports except basketball and football, said Vin Lananna, director of track and field and cross country at University of Virginia and former president of USA Track and Field. “It can’t be a good thing,” he said.

Washington State

Washington State University announced in mid-June that it was shifting its track and field program to a “distance-focused approach” and would no longer be supporting field events such as jumps and throws “effective immediately.”

The athletic department declined to comment.

As a result, Washington State student-athletes Brooke Lyons and Ashley Willems said they received a little over two hours advance notice of the 10-minute Zoom call where they learned of their program’s dissolution and had no chance to ask questions.

In order to continue their track and field careers, both said they had to enter the transfer portal “very fast” in order to find another school where they could compete.

All three of their assistant coaches were fired, they said, and most of the sprinting and jumping athletes have opted to leave the school after they were told they could choose to stay with “limited resources” available.

Washington State has produced several track and field Olympians and all-Americans; four of its former athletes competed at the Paris Olympics in 2024.

Yet, success isn’t enough to protect a program from elimination, Seemes said.

Men’s Volleyball

That was the case at Grand Canyon University, which announced it was eliminating its men’s volleyball team—which made the NCAA Final Four in 2024—in late April to focus “on supporting its remaining 20 athletic programs.”

Cole Ottmar and Jaxon Herr, who were among 21 players cut from the team, said they were notified of its elimination in a 10-minute conversation with their athletic director.

The meeting wasn’t disclosed as mandatory and their coaches weren’t allowed in the room, they said.

Ottmar said he couldn’t attend the meeting because he had a final exam at the same time, but he found out through social media.

GCU declined to comment besides its public announcement.

Smaller Rosters

Some schools, including Georgia Tech’s swimming and diving team, are cutting their rosters rather than eliminating their programs. Caroline Porterfield and Sabina Mrzyglod were among 19 swimmers and divers on the team cut in April.

Georgia Tech Associate Athletic Director Mike Flynn confirmed, in an email to Bloomberg Law, that roster positions have been reduced across their 17 sports as the athletic department prepares for revenue sharing.

Kevin Sullivan, director of track and field at University of Michigan, a member of the Big Ten, said he has also made some cuts as both the women and men’s teams were over the roster cap of 45.

“Recruiting classes are going to have to get smaller,” he said.

The changes professionalize athletes in a way that makes the NCAA “more and more of a business and less of a collegiate athletic system,” said Ryan Fowkes, a recent Virginia Tech graduate who ran cross country and track.

In the long run, the US may find it harder to win Olympic medals in such sports as swimming, track, and gymnastics, because removing these opportunities for Division I athletes “thins out the competition pool,” he said.

More than 1,200 current, former, and incoming NCAA athletes competed at the 2024 Paris Olympics, including roughly 400 track and field athletes and 220 swimmers.

The settlement will come with a lot of “unintended and unforeseen consequences,” said Russell Dinkins, executive director of the Tracksmith Foundation, a nonprofit focused on increasing opportunity for participation in track and field.

Collegiate football and basketball players who have been “exploited” for decades will get what they deserve, but the settlement will harm high school students who want to pursue athletics, Dinkins said.

Greater competition for roster spots means high schoolers will have to be more elite and developed so they can stand a chance against international athletes and those in the transfer portal, he said.

“College athletics are providers for further education,” Dinkins said.

Mrzyglod said she will forgo her last year of eligibility to receive her degree from Georgia Tech after being cut from the swim team as a rising senior.

Not realizing she’d finished her swimming career at the time was the worst part of this experience, she said.

“Look at all this money coming for basketball and football athletes!” Mrzyglod said. “But what about all the athletes whose careers just ended?”