How will the NCAA’s new scholarship rules affect college track and field?

College track and field will never be the same again, and that is not an exaggeration. While the entire world was preparing for the Olympics to go off in Paris, the NCAA decide to make a decision that changed everything we have come to understand about college athletics. If you were paying attention, you could have seen the warning signs over the past half decade. First the sports world shut down in 2020. Then Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals became legal across college sports with almost no parameters. Then conference realignment came around to not only change what schools were in each conference, but ended up killing off one of the Power 5 entirely. (R.I.P. to the Pac-12). So when the NCAA finally decided to settle a bunch of lawsuits against it from past and present athletes to the tune of 2.7 billion dollars, it was clear that something had to change. And now we know what those changes are.

If you read just a little bit about what is about to happen officially, it is clear that college track and field had almost no impact on these rule changes. In fact, most of sports media is so focused on discussing the potential changes for college football, that they can’t even be bothered to refer to track and field by name. They might mention basketball, or perhaps even baseball or volleyball. But track and field often doesn’t even get mentioned as anything more than being lumped in with the other “Olympic sports”, or even worse the “non-revenue generating sports”. So until ESPN and all their friends in the media can be bothered enough to mention the sport by name. I am here to help you make sense of what is about to happen. Because the NCAA’s billion-dollar settlement, its new revenue share model, and new scholarship allocation model will have a very big impact on college track and field. To be brutally honest you might not even be able to recognize the sport a few years from now compared to what it looks like today.  So no matter who you are as a college coach, athlete, or even a future recruit, one thing is for certain. That you will have some tough decisions to make going forward. 

This is a breakdown of how these rule changes will specifically affect college track and field programs, and the athletes who compete for them. If you just read the headlines they might lead you to believe that there will simply be no scholarship limit for track and field teams going forward, which essentially translates to free money for everyone. That headline might be technically true, but it’s not even close to being accurate. There is very little good that will come to track and field as a whole, as a result of all of this. Most of the rule changes will actually be bad in the long run, and the potential impact on future recruits will likely get pretty ugly.

What are the new NCAA rules?

At the Division 1 level, the NCAA will now allow schools to opt-in to a revenue sharing model for their college sports teams. A salary cap between 20-30 million dollars will be established, and they can distribute that money via direct payments, scholarships, and other benefits. As a part of this new deal, the NCAA will also cease to regulate scholarship allocations across each sport. Up until now, Division 1 sports have had maximum scholarship limits on how much money any school could provide to athletes. And schools could not directly pay any of their athletes beyond academic scholarship costs. This new system instead puts a roster cap on schools that opt-in, letting them give out as much money as they want until they hit that total roster number. For track and field that roster cap will be 45 athletes for either the men’s or women’s team.

Who is opting in to the new NCAA Division 1 model?

The thing about these rule changes is that there is a whole lot that is going unsaid. First, it must be identified how many schools are going to opt-in to this system, or for that matter why anyone would not. Then we must address the elephant in the room, “where is all the money for the revenue sharing and new scholarships going to come from, and how can we be sure that track and field athletes will get their fair share?”

To address the first question, we know who is opting in based off of who sued the NCAA. That is what started this mess to begin with. The 2.7 billion dollar settlement the NCAA agreed upon was specifically with schools who were members of the power 5 conferences. When you consider that the Pac-12 is dead, that leaves the current members of the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, and ACC as the only known programs that obviously will be opting in. If you consider that there are still about 30 D1 conferences in total, that means we have no real idea what is happening at most of the other schools in D1. However, it is safe to assume that almost every school currently considered to be FCS level, which is nearly 130 entering the 2024 season will be opting out.

Where will schools get the money for the new D1 model?

However, the answer to the second question is much more complicated. The truth is most schools don’t have 20 million dollars lying around to spend. Some of them do from a combination of television deal profits and booster funds, but most do not. That includes most of the schools remaining in what is now the power 4 conferences. Schools like Wake Forest and Vanderbilt are essentially being pressured into spending this money to keep up with the few schools who do have it, like Texas, Oregon, and Ohio State. But we also know who the revenue share money is for. It’s for the same group that was already receiving more than half of every NIL dollar flowing through college sports. It’s primarily for the football teams at those schools. Basketball teams matter, but don’t bring in anywhere near the revenue football is capable of. As a result, they are really a second-tier concern. In short, once you take care of football, you can pay basketball with whatever is left. Almost no other sport on the men’s side, or women’s side generates any tangible profit for athletic departments at the overwhelming majority of D1 institutions. And this matters because it is a clue to what’s going to happen with the scholarship dollars as well.

Fundamentally speaking, the NCAA was not really asking schools to spend more on scholarships with this decision. They were simply telling the schools that they could spend more if they wanted to. As far as I understand that scholarship money can be counted towards the 20-to-30-million-dollar revenue share number. What we know for certain, is that any school that opts in to this model and plays FBS football will now be awarding close to if not all 105 scholarship slots to their football team. They will also fully fund basketball for men and women, as well as women’s volleyball. Softball and baseball are almost guaranteed to see more scholarships allocated their way as well. But almost every other sports team, is up for a huge debate. And track and field as an Olympic sport is pretty low on the totem pole for most colleges.

How are schools going to adjust to the new NCAA rules?

University of Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman said it this way: “All athletic programs, including those in the Big Ten, face very real financial constraints. On our campus, we must determine what we can afford, who will receive these new scholarship or revenue sharing benefits and in what amounts.”

He is trying to gently point out that everybody will not get a piece of the pie. These rule changes could be a good thing, but they also could be a bad thing. I know for a fact, based on conversations with college coaches that many track teams weren’t even spending up to the maximum allowable limit for scholarships prior to this decision. The limit used to be 12.6 scholarships for men’s teams, and 18 for women’s teams. With that in mind, the fact that schools essentially must throw more money at football and select other sports than they ever have, doesn’t mean they want to do it with track and field. It means quite the opposite. The simple reason is because track and field doesn’t generate revenue dollars for the athletic department. That is the case at any school across the country. The best way for any track program, even a top 10 D1 program to make money, is not from fans, television deals, or selling concessions and merchandise. Their best bet is to host more track meets and convince other colleges to pay them to attend. If they do, that gives them a chance of getting close to breaking even on their annual budget. 

The roster cap rule alone is going to ask schools that opt in to adjust how they recruit. Although some programs in the power conferences are already at the 45 roster limit, all of them are not. For example, the current men’s roster at some schools is as high as 60 athletes. They will have to cut down by at least 15 athletes just to remain in compliance. And what will happen to those athletes “who likely aren’t on scholarship of any kind anyway” remains to be seen.

Why did the NCAA make this rule change to begin with?

If you consider that the law suit that triggered this rule change was brought forth by the power conferences, it is clear that their interests are the driving force. The NCAA actually does its job amazingly well to regulate college athletics. But power conference football is a major exception. Those schools figured out how to make a lot of money from college sports, in a way that nobody else can. They are not called the power conferences for no reason. They have influence on how the NCAA is shaped. Once NIL rights became a thing for athletes, it started a bidding war to get the services of athletes, but particularly football players. The idea has been floated that power conference football should simply leave the NCAA entirely and from its own governing body. That would obviously cut out the NCAA on potential profit. And these schools are still NCAA members for every other sport. So the NCAA appears to be changing its rules to make these schools happier, and let them make almost as much money as they want at the same time. It explains why scholarships are not going to be regulated. Because removing the restriction lets schools do whatever they really want to with their finances and keep it above board with the NCAA.

What do the NCAA rule changes really mean for college track and field? 

If you go looking for information about how the new NCAA rules will affect schools beyond the power conferences, you won’t find much. And now, many people are hesitant to give any real projections on the future of college sports. However, I do not share such reservations. Regardless of whether you understand all the rule changes, and how it impacts any specific school, there will be consequences. And the most obvious ramification that nobody seems to be honest about is that Division 1 sports as we came to know it no longer exists.

Up until the NIL era, there was essentially no real difference between D1 schools. The television exposure and stadium size of a Penn State might be different from that of a Temple in football. But they were both D1 FBS programs. Which is why they compete for the same national championship. Of course, an FBS football school like Penn State University in the Big Ten could offer more scholarships and play a more robust schedule than perhaps, an FCS football school like Bucknell University.  This is in addition to the superficial differences like playing in bigger stadiums and receiving more television exposure than any FCS school could hope to get. So for that reason, although they are both Division 1 football programs, we refer to one as FBS, and the other as FCS. As far as D1 football is concerned, everybody knows that FBS is essentially the “real D1” and FCS is the lower tier version. We simply don’t call it Division 2 because there is an actual D2 below that level with even more restrictions on the competition. But this difference among football programs is now going to affect every sports program in the NCAA, regardless of your conference. And it will have perhaps its biggest impact on track and field.

Any school that opts in to the new D1 model proposed is basically a top tier D1 school. Any school that opts out will automatically be in the bottom tier. Before the terms FBS and FCS were used, we used to refer that distinction in football as D1-A and D1-AA. So track and field programs will basically become D1-A or D1-AA as well. I will refer to the schools with those labels going forward. However, all D1 A track and field programs will not be created equal.

What will D1 track and field in the power conferences look like?

Schools in the power conferences will have the freedom to give more resources to track and field, but they have little incentive to do so. All signs point to overall funding for track and field either staying roughly the same at most schools or getting cut down to some degree to make room for other sports to get funded. These schools were already the best track and field programs anyway. Every D1 NCAA track and field champion on the men’s side and women’s side has been a school that is today either in the ACC, Big Ten, SEC, or Big 12 since 1983. It is because these schools already have the top recruits coming to their programs, and win as a result, that adding more funding is of little benefit even if winning is their goal. They will all have to battle it out with each other for the same recruits as they’ve done for years. And the schools outside of the new D1 A tier won’t have the resources to compete against them either. That said, some schools will feel pressure to cut teams, and track and field is one of them. Any power conference school that has not had great success in football will feel the pressure to spend as much as possible. The only way for them to do it will be to cut more funding elsewhere. Interestingly enough this logic is why programs like Vanderbilt University in the SEC likely got rid of their men’s track and field program years ago.

The most serious change at the power conference level, is that some programs will have to cut down their roster sizes. Track and field teams generally have a large percentage of non-scholarship athletes. But a roster cap will force athletes out of these teams, even if they were without scholarship to find somewhere else to compete. In recruiting, most of those athletes will be low 4 star level recruit level on a site like scarecruiting.com. And where they will end up instead is not very clear due to how the rule changes will affect everybody else.

What will D1 track and field look like for schools that “opt-in” outside of the power conferences?

For the schools that are not in the power conferences, things are way more complicated if they opt-in to the new model. Those schools don’t have television deals for football to generate a lot of revenue. Their desire to opt-in comes from hoping that one day they can join a power conference. When they opt-in they will have to reroute every dollar, they can to find enough money to make their football team somewhat attractive to recruits who are looking at power conference programs. Keep in mind, football is the only true revenue generating sport at most schools. Not even basketball at its highest level can compete with a decent FBS football team on revenue. As a result, some of these schools will have to cut programs in order to pull off fielding a competitive product. Track and field teams, especially men’s programs are most likely to get cut as a result due to Title IX regulations.

These programs if they do choose to stay afloat, will likely have to cut scholarship budgets down, rather than increase them. They will have to slash operating budgets for travel and other expenditures. And they will still have to cut some of their rosters to fit under the 45-athlete cap. That is a major issue, because when you don’t have much scholarship money, loading out your roster with many athletes is a consolation prize. Even if you have non-scholarship athletes, some of them can develop into national caliber runners. Assuming they don’t enter the transfer portal, you can win big with those athletes if you can carry enough of them. All 60 men won’t be star performers, but some of them will. Any team that enters the new D1-A model without the backing of the power conferences will be doing so at their own risk to the entire athletic department. And they would much rather cut track and field if they felt it gave them a better chance at survival.

What will D1 track and field look like for schools that don’t opt-in?

Any school that does not opt-in to the new revenue sharing model is essentially going to become D1-AA at best. They won’t have roster caps, and as far as we know will be unregulated going forward on scholarship dollars. But those schools don’t generate much athletic revenue anyway, even if they do play football. So they are almost all underfunded for track and field already for the NCAAs maximum allowable limit entering 2024-2025. Those schools may choose to keep doing a lot of what they were doing. However, that approach for D1-AA track and field is essentially to accept that you no longer compete in the same world as the schools who did opt-in. The real challenge is that very little talent will be left on the recruiting board to convince to commit to your track and field program. Track was one of the few sports where a legitimate 4 star recruit could routinely end up at a lesser known program. That is much less likely now with what will essentially become the new D1-AA stigma. Athletes will more than ever want to go to schools that they perceive to be the best. If a school does not opt-in they are announcing that they are second rate. 

The real question for the schools who don’t elect to opt-in is not so much what will change for them within their program, but what will be changing in the world around them. In track and field, Division 2 schools had very similar scholarship limits to that of D1 programs entering the 2024-2025 season. That explains why the bottom half of D1 in track and field is almost indistinguishable from the top half of D2 in track. Entire conferences could likely be swapped out between D2 and D1 and nobody would notice. Consider that the NE-10 and NEC are D2 and D1 respectively. But almost nobody would notice if they switched places because they perform almost the same. They even share the same real estate on the map with their conference members. If the NCAA is essentially creating a D1-AA tier for all sports, how is that much different from what is already happening in D2? As a recruit it will likely be hard to tell the difference between programs at either level.

If schools that opt-in decide to give out more scholarships than they used to, it will further tip the scales in recruiting. The smaller D1 programs didn’t have a chance to win as a team anyway in the old system. But on talent, even without roster caps, they will be even more outmatched. Remember, these schools either offer little scholarship money by comparison, or none in today’s world.

Perhaps the most detrimental consequence, is that some of these schools may still choose to cut track and field programs. If the new D1-AA programs are essentially asked to compete with the D1-A programs for national recognition, then it might be best for low performing track teams to simply be cut in the eyes of an athletic department. It may solve a clear problem but frees up money to use elsewhere to make other teams competitive. If the gap between the haves, and the have nots gets wider, some teams may simply give up on competing entirely.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately the NCAA’s new rule changes were not made without track and field in mind. They put track and field at risk more than anything else at every level. It essentially creates 2 different versions of D1 that might as well bring back the old language of D1-A and D1-AA sports. Even amongst the D1-A schools that opt-in to the new model there will be a lot of discrepancy between those who have the resources to compete, and those who are searching for dollars to help stay competitive. And for those who inevitably choose to opt-out, they will announce themselves as the new D1-AA. Best case scenario, the NCAA acknowledges this and allows these lower tier schools to compete against each other for championships. It is exactly what football invented the two-tiered D1 system for. But if they do not, the races that we watch in college track and field will get even more predictable. And if you are a track and field recruit who wants to go D1, it will now be more important than ever before that you specify, which version of D1 you are talking about. Because the schools who share revenue with anyone, and give more scholarships as a result, will have to be even more picky going forward about whom they give any of that money to.

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