Is the NCAA Olympic Pipeline Collapsing After House v. NCAA?: What’s at Stake for Olympic Sports as College Athletics Restructures
Part II in a three-part op-ed series
Op-Ed: This article is an op-ed. The views expressed are solely those of the authors, Grayson Bloes and Atlas Metin, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine or its staff.
By Grayson Bloes and Atlas Metin
In Part One of this series, we explored how the House v. NCAA settlement has already begun reshaping college athletics.
Nearly six months after taking effect, the consequences are no longer theoretical. Athletic departments are restructuring budgets, tightening roster limits, and reassessing which sports they can afford to sustain.
Reader Poll: As college athletics adjusts to the House v. NCAA settlement, we want to hear from the Swimming World community.
#1. Do you believe the House v. NCAA settlement puts America’s Olympic pipeline at risk?
We’ll share reader results in Part Three of this series.
As we were all Ringing in the New Year, Cal Baptist abruptly dropped Swimming and Diving, along with Golf and Wrestling.
Cal Baptist drops Swimming
The program is leaving behind a rich history at a variety of levels. California Baptist is competing in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation this year after being a member of the Western Athletic Conference from 2018-25, finishing second in the conference last year and no worse than third each of the last three years on the men’s side. The Lancers sent Remi Fabiani, now at Arizona State, to NCAAs in 2025. The men earned 58 All-American honors from 12 individuals at the CSCAA National Invitational Championship meet since elevation to Division I.
This is not a passing trend…
In Part Two, the question becomes more urgent: what happens to America’s Olympic future if the NCAA model that built it continues to unravel?
For more than 75 years, USA Swimming has relied on a system unlike any other in the world. Rather than government-funded training centers, USA has developed its Olympic athletes almost entirely through college sports. This decentralized, campus-based model created depth, competition, and access at a scale no national program could replicate.
An Olympic Pipeline Without a Replacement
Olympic sports depend on infrastructure that is both expensive and non-negotiable:
- Large rosters that allow broad participation and internal competition
- Facilities such as pools, tracks, and training centers with high fixed costs
- Specialized coaching staffs and support personnel
- National and international travel schedules
- Sports medicine, academic services, and compliance support
These programs do not generate significant spectator revenue. They exist because the NCAA’s long-standing cross-subsidization model allowed football and basketball revenues to support them. House v. NCAA did not eliminate that model directly — but it redirected the resources that made it viable.
What remains is a pipeline with no obvious replacement.
The Compounding Effect of Cuts
Each roster reduction or program elimination sends ripple effects far beyond a single campus. The consequences compound quickly:
- Fewer scholarship opportunities for elite and developing athletes
- Narrower recruiting pipelines from club and high school programs
- Reduced access to facilities for surrounding swim communities
- Loss of experienced collegiate coaches who anchor the development system
- Diminished depth for future Olympic and national teams
These are not abstract concerns. Olympic success depends on volume as much as excellence. The U.S. advantage has always been depth, with hundreds of athletes competing at an elite level. Year after year. Across dozens of collegiate programs.
When participation shrinks, depth disappears. When depth disappears, dominance follows.
An Uneven Redistribution
The irony of the House settlement is difficult to ignore. The ruling redirects millions of dollars toward sports already supported by:
- Multi-billion-dollar television contracts
- Conference revenue-sharing agreements
- Professional leagues with global reach
Meanwhile, the sports that represent the United States on the world stage — swimming, diving, water polo, track & field, rowing — are left to absorb the financial shock.
This is not an argument against athlete compensation. It is an argument against allowing Olympic sports to become collateral damage in the process.
The NCAA model did not just produce Olympians — it produced sustained excellence. If that model continues to erode without intervention, the United States risks losing the very system that made it the world’s most successful Olympic nation.
The collapse is not sudden. It is incremental. And it is already underway.
In Part Three of this series, we examine what comes next — and whether new funding models, policy solutions, and community action can still save Olympic sports before the damage becomes irreversible.