While schools like Duke, St. Johns, Ohio State, LSU, and Notre Dame will remain strong — or even stronger — after the House v. NCAA settlement, the ruling could badly damage future United States Olympic teams.
College sports have been forever changed by the addition of name, image, and likeness money. However, those funds come from outside sources. But another massive shift is coming in college athlete compensation via the House v. NCAA settlement. In the close-to-finalized court ruling, schools will be on the hook to pay their athletes directly.
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Wildly popular sports schools like Duke, Ohio State, Alabama, or USC will be fine after the settlement. They make huge sums from the various sports programs. And they will continue to benefit by being able to outspend smaller programs. However, that won’t be the case for many schools. That is why Front Office Sports put a spotlight on Grand Canyon University on Friday.
GCU has one of the very best men’s volleyball programs in America and reached the Final Four last year. However, soon after their season ended, they were informed by school officials that the program would not return in 2025.
“The team appears to be one of the earliest Olympic sports casualties of the upcoming House v. NCAA settlement era, in which athletic departments use the settlement’s new compensation requirements (including sharing revenue with players) as justification to cease funding what they deem ‘non-revenue sports.'”
FOS
Fans of college football and basketball may not be concerned with schools shedding sports they aren’t interested in. They may even take a stance that the popular sports should not have to fund the ones that aren’t. But that would be a very short-sighted outlook when it comes to massive events like the winter and summer Olympics, as FOS explains.
“Cutting Olympic sports could have far-reaching consequences, as the NCAA represents one of the world’s strongest Olympic pipelines. GCU’s discontinuation suggests no program is safe.”
FOS
One has to wonder what could happen to women’s softball, men’s baseball, or lacrosse at some schools if they are deemed not to be pulling their revenue weight in the years ahead.
