By James Sutherland on SwimSwam
While a lot of the focus on Wednesday’s Senate hearing on the Protect College Sports Act centered on NCAA governance and athlete compensation, Senator Maria Cantwell raised another concern about the NCAA’s current climate: the existential threat to women’s and Olympic sports.
Senators Cantwell (D-Washington) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced the landmark bipartisan bill last week, and Wednesday marked its first hearing in the Senate.
“My colleagues probably know that there are probably 25 things that Senator Cruz and I don’t agree on, and that’s just in this committee. So, saying that it is an accomplishment for him and I to agree on this is saying something,” Cantwell said in her opening remarks.
“We agree today that college athletics are in crisis, and we agree that the system is broken and unsustainable. Universities, athletes, and fans are pleading with us to do something about this issue.”
Cantwell pointed to schools cutting women’s and Olympic sports as key evidence of this “crisis,” noting that the pay-for-play system that’s slowly developed in football and basketball is pushing out other programs as schools try to keep pace.
“Schools are cutting women’s and Olympic programs, and they are dropping scholarships – I think we have a poster out here that shows that – erasing roster slots to try to keep pace with out-of-control spending in football and basketball. I think, as Coach Saban says in his statement, this has turned into pay-for-play. We cannot have a pay-for-play system and then continue to cut this many women and Olympic athletes in various programs.
“Just since 2023, over 100 programs and more than 1000 athletic scholarships and roster [spots] in women and Olympic sports have been eliminated, and it’s going to get worse. In April, the University of Arkansas and St. Louis University both announced within days of each other they were going to cut the women’s—actually and men’s—tennis teams.
“Kansas, Colorado, Rutgers, and Washington State –my home state – beloved institutions with strong alumni bases and storied histories – are getting hollowed out. And even if the universities are not cutting sports programs, they are taxing students who are not athletes and taking money out of their general funds to cover ballooning athletic program deficit.”
Protecting women’s and Olympic sports is among the concepts in the bill that are only triggered if media rights are pooled. If schools opt into pooling media rights, the act legally requires them to maintain specific scholarship and roster funding for women’s and Olympic spots.
Read more on the bill here.She referenced the U.S. collegiate system as an Olympic training ground similar to the specific programs countries like Russia and China have built for development in Olympic sports. Without it, future Olympic teams will suffer, she said.
“Three out of four members of the 2024 Olympic team in Paris were current or former college athletes, and it was the women Olympians in Paris who took home the majority of the gold. As Notre Dame Athletic Director Pete Bevacqua, who is here with us today, said, ‘If we continue to go down this path of no legislative action, Olympic and women’s sports around the United States will be at risk both this year and years to come’,” Cantwell said.
“I believe the failure of us to act here will make us responsible for the outcome of future Olympic teams if we don’t come up with a solution. But as my colleague Senator Cruz said, none of this is inevitable. We can and we should write better rules that put athletes first and keep our institution strong, and that is exactly what the [Protect] College Sports Act does.”
Cruz and Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould also shared their concern for the future of women’s and Olympic sports on Wednesday.
“I think one of the really important parts of this bill is protecting women’s sports and Olympic sports and non-revenue sports,” Cruz said, according to USA Today. “One of the tragedies we’re seeing right now under the status quo is it seems like every single week a different college is cancelling women’s sports, Olympic sports, non-revenue sports.
“If we don’t act, we’re going to continue to see devastation. And I, for one, don’t want to see an Olympics where every gold medal goes to Russia and China and Americans are not able to compete because we’ve devastated the preparation of our Olympic athletes.”
Though a lot of her testimony was focused on collective bargaining and athlete employment, Gould also touched on the status of women’s Olympic and sports, saying: “I think we’ve seen the data, I think the threats are real, and I think it’s an important issue for our country and the student-athletes in those sports.”
The SEC and Big Ten issued a joint statement in opposition to the bill on Tuesday, though the ACC and Big 12 are among a large group that have shown support since its introduction last week.
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