Motion to Disrupt Vol. 7
Funding and Protecting the Olympic Dream
OPENING STATEMENTS
The fate of U.S. Olympic sports stands at a crossroads. The numbers are stark: more than 40 Division I programs like wrestling, gymnastics, and swimming – many of which feed directly into the U.S. Olympic pipeline – have already been eliminated since the House settlement. With universities forced to reevaluate their athletic budgets and faced with lucrative incentives to prioritize football and men’s basketball, there is every reason to believe this wave of cuts could keep climbing without substantial rules and regulations.
The consequences are not abstract. At the Paris Olympics last year, 75% of U.S. Olympians and 53% of Paralympians came through collegiate athletics. For many sports like track and field, swimming, diving, rowing, water polo, and volleyball, college isn’t just a stepping stone. It is the pipeline. Without these programs, Team USA could face a serious talent gap that reshapes the Olympic stage for generations.
There are policy ideas being floated, but nothing concrete. The proposed SCORE Act would require colleges to maintain at least 16 varsity teams. But most Division I schools already meet that threshold, so the real impact would be pretty limited. The concern? Schools could trim down their offerings – cutting Olympic sport programs – until they just barely meet the minimum.
As Sarah Hirshland, CEO of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, put it: “The bill, as it’s written, would make it too easy for a school to starve 15 programs and invest in one. It’s important schools have the latitude to make decisions that are most effective for the school, but while also creating an environment that says ‘You don’t just need to be a football school.’”
Hirshland and the USOPC continue to push for stronger legislation. The amended SCORE Act introduced this week includes a call for a Comptroller General study on the impact to Olympic sports, but it stops short of any enforceable safeguards. These programs remain vulnerable, and without binding protections, the cuts are likely to continue.
So what would real solutions look like?
One promising idea, backed by the USOPC, is to add regulations that guarantees that schools will spend the same percentage on Olympic programs in the future as they do now. What might even be better is to set an actual baseline percentage of athletic funding that must go to Olympic sports. For example, FBS schools spend about 65% of their athletics budgets on football and men’s basketball, leaving only 35% for everything else. Locking in that 35% - or even expanding it - would give Olympic sports some much-needed protection.
This kind of codification would offer the clearest line of defense against further cuts and is the most direct way to ensure the Olympic pipeline remains open and accessible for future generations of athletes.
Another plausible future may see Olympic sport programs increasingly concentrated at universities willing to carve out a niche as hubs for athlete development. For instance, schools like Stanford and Princeton have long histories of supporting a diverse range of Olympic sports - from fencing to rowing - well beyond the typical Division I football or basketball powerhouses. In some cases, Division II and III institutions have also filled gaps, developing Olympians in swimming, volleyball, and track in environments less dominated by revenue sports.
Under this model, colleges that prioritize Olympic sports could receive direct support from national governing bodies or even federal funding, which many other countries already provide through centralized sports academies.
In fact, the U.S. is one of the few major Olympic nations without government funding for Olympic sport development. Maintaining America’s Olympic pipeline through the NCAA would account for than 0.3% of the annual U.S. defense budget. Whether the federal government should help to subsidize the college Olympic pipeline is a legitimate, separate question. But a small but strategic investment could ensure America remains globally competitive - especially as countries like China and the U.K. continue to scale their Olympic funding efforts.
The recent decision by the College Sports Commission to treat NIL collectives like other businesses offers a promising – though individual – avenue for Olympic sport athletes to access compensation. For athletes in sports that generate little revenue, this opens a legitimate path to personal compensation that was previously out of reach under the previous guidance. The Texas men’s swim team, which won the 2025 NCAA championship, for example, received approximately $1,000 per athlete last year from the school’s collective.
Still, NIL alone won’t safeguard the future of Olympic sports. Without enforceable funding protections, the development of future Olympians risks becoming a privilege limited to schools willing - or wealthy enough - to go beyond the bare minimum. These athletes must be supported as part of the broader collegiate athletics ecosystem.
The Olympic dream has long been fueled by opportunity – not just for a select few, but for thousands of college athletes across the country. Collegiate programs have served as the backbone of Team USA, offering elite training, education, and competition to athletes who might otherwise be overlooked by centralized systems. To preserve that legacy, there must be real, enforceable protections from Congress or robust systems that prioritize and sustain Olympic sport programs on campus. Without that, the U.S. risks hollowing out the very foundation that has produced generations of Olympians – and denying future athletes the chance to compete, develop, and benefit from the opportunities they’ve earned, including NIL.
EXHIBIT A
A recent federal ruling in Nevada may signal a transformative shift in college athletics, positioning junior colleges (JUCOs) as the new “minor leagues” of Division I sports, at least in football. In granting JUCO transfer Cortez Braham a preliminary injunction against the NCAA’s 5-Year Eligibility Rule, the court recognized NCAA Division I football as a distinct and essential pathway to the NFL - a market with commercial value due to its unique access to professional opportunities and NIL compensation. The decision also challenged the NCAA’s long-standing claim that its rules are “noncommercial,” calling that view outdated in a post-Alston era.
This ruling opens the door for more legal challenges and introduces a new pipeline: older athletes extending their careers through JUCOs to preserve eligibility and re-enter the DI ecosystem. As college sports increasingly resemble professional leagues, JUCOs may evolve into unofficial farm systems. This could normalize 24- and 25-year-old “college seniors” chasing exposure and income. The question now is not whether JUCOs can be part of the system, but how soon the NCAA and conferences will need to formally reckon with their role in an increasingly commercialized and litigious college sports landscape.
EXHIBIT B
In last week’s newsletter, I mentioned how the new revenue-sharing structure could shift the competitive landscape - giving certain schools the opportunity to dominate specific sports. Jacob Feldman’s piece this week went a little further in identifying the nine DII or DIII schools that “opted in” to the House settlement to empower its single, or small number of DI sports, such as Dallas Baptist’s baseball team.
DBU athletic director Matt Duce said: “The decision was not so much if we are going to opt in or not, but just how we’re going to adapt to the new climate. If you don’t do it, then you’re gonna have a really hard time competing.”
I expect this trend to continue. But as Feldman notes, the bigger question is whether schools like DBU, which, as an entire university, generated $150 million in revenues last year, can actually carve out a real competitive edge through this approach, while powerhouses like the University of Texas - whose athletic department alone pulled in $332 million - continue to channel the majority of their resources into football and basketball.
ON THE DOCKET
Collective bargaining. As detailed by Ross Dellenger, Democratic lawmakers, Rep. Summer Lee and Sen. Chris Murphy, an old friend of mine, this week reintroduced a bill (different from the SCORE Act) aimed at affirming and expanding college athletes’ rights to organize, form unions and collectively bargain with universities and/or conferences. “College athletes exhibit the markers of employment as established under the common law definition of the term ‘employee,’ “ the bill says. As we’ve talked about previously in this space, this seems like an inevitable outcome at some point in the future.
FOOTNOTES
"Holy shit the world has changed." – Illinois coach Bret Bielema on schools paying athletes through PayPal. (via @skrajisnik3)
