The SEC and Big Ten are discussing roster limits of 23 men and 35 women, respectively, for their swimming & diving programs, with both swimmers and divers counting as 1 athlete on those rosters. These new roster limits would take effect for the 2025-2026 season, with no significant easing-in-period.
According to sources, the SEC met about three weeks before the US Olympic Trials, in late May, and came up with a number of 23 men and 35 women. Big Ten coaches met two weeks later and came up with numbers of 30 men and 35 women, with both conferences expected to ultimately match at the lower number for men.
While other conferences won’t be bound by those numbers, as the two power brokers in college athletics, the SEC and Big Ten are expected to drive what happens elsewhere.
Last Friday, these numbers, along with numbers for other sports, went to mediation or arbitration to be finalized. SwimSwam could not confirm that the numbers were finalized.
These numbers are very similar to the 22 and 35 that SwimSwam first reported in May as an SEC proposal. The number for football teams is expected to land between 100 and 110 athletes.
The moves are all in response to ongoing litigation and rules changes regarding student-athletes and their share of revenues generated by athletics departments, including them being declared employees. Athletics departments across the country are now ranking their programs by different criteria and evaluating how they might reduce sports and/or budgets for those programs to deal with new rules, regulations, and settlements.
What remains to be seen is whether scholarships will count as ‘revenue sharing,’ and how Title IX regulations will be applied to topics of revenue sharing and Name, Image, and Likeness.
Below, SwimSwam has compiled, and averaged, the number of athletes on each Big Ten and SEC roster for last season to give an idea of how many roster spots will be impacted. This information is based on federally-submitted data, meaning that it won’t always reflect perfectly what happens on the ground (swimmers getting injured, quitting the team, etc.) but is the best count available.
In both conferences, men’s rosters are, on average, slightly smaller than women’s rosters. While a few women’s rosters, like Indiana, will be impacted pretty significantly by the new roster limits, many others won’t be impacted at all.
Several coaches that SwimSwam spoke with said that the impact on the men’s rosters is more significant – both because the number is so low, and because men generally develop more once they arrive in college than women. A roster of 23 would dramatically impact the ability of men’s programs to hold varsity spots for developmental swimmers, though some have floated proposals about using a non-varsity club team to skirt some of that.
Some schools may implement tighter restrictions as a cost control measure. There is currently no mandated roster limit, though schools often use roster limits in sports like swimming for budgeting and Title IX balancing purposes.
Ultimately, these new rules are going to have an enormous impact on collegiate athletics, barring any last-minute reprieve by an American congress that has been wont in recent months to pass any substantial legislation.
Big Ten Rosters, 2023-2024
| School | Men | Women |
| Illinois | X | 33 |
| Indiana | 37 | 48 |
| Iowa | X | 22 |
| Michigan | 37 | 35 |
| Minnesota | 27 | 31 |
| Nebraska | X | 23 |
| Northwestern | 24 | 30 |
| Ohio State | 42 | 35 |
| Penn State | 30 | 39 |
| Purdue | 37 | 44 |
| Rutgers | X | 29 |
| UCLA | X | 43 |
| USC | 34 | 31 |
| Wisconsin | 31 | 29 |
| Average | 33.22 | 33.71 |
SEC Rosters, 2023-2024
| School | Men | Women |
| Alabama | 31 | 37 |
| Arkansas | X | 24 |
| Auburn | 39 | 38 |
| Florida | 47 | 39 |
| Georgia | 40 | 37 |
| Kentucky | 28 | 41 |
| LSU | 31 | 34 |
| Missouri | 29 | 29 |
| South Carolina | 31 | 44 |
| Tennessee | 38 | 45 |
| Texas | 44 | 35 |
| Texas A&M | 38 | 48 |
| Vanderbilt | X | 29 |
| 36.00 | 38.82 |
Most conferences only score 17 or 18 athletes anyway, right? Schools will be less likely to take a flyer on a diamond in the rough, but I don’t think it’ll impact as much as we think it might – “distance swimmers have to go to d3 now” type of comments are too dramatic.
“Gender Equity.”
23 is crazy. These big name school can get donors. They have some rich alumni and they could likely spare some donations to the team. Coaches need to ask, It’s a little taboo but honestly
You got 23 scholarships and let’s say like 5 instate and 18 out of state you’ll likely need a million to cover everything. Alumni have no obligation to donate however I believe some of them voluntarily would.
Most schools quote their coaches at $1 million-$1.5 million to endow a full scholarship. So you would need to raise about $50 million to endow this, per school. So to keep D1 whole, you’re looking at somewhere in the vicinity of $4 billion.
If that money was just sitting out there for college swimming, and schools have just been afraid to ask, then damn that ship has sailed. I would guess a big time program could raise $5 million if it had to. Might be part of the solution, but it’s not the whole solution.
The mid-major schools men’s programs that survive the bloodletting to come are going to get way faster. The rest will trickle down to d2 & d3 swimming.
Wasn’t title 9 supposed to create equality? So why is the men’s roster nearly 2/3 the size of the women’s…
Football
23 is way too small. This is a fundamental change to the sport.
Agreed, the original proposal of 30 is much more reasonable
yea its pretty crazy, why would you ever even have a distance swimmer on your roster now? If you can’t use them on relays they aren’t providing enough value for the roster spot …
Maybe you can afford 1 , but that guy is going to be super lonely grinding miles by himself.
Where will the distance swimmers go?
D3
will you be paying the 70k per year for everyone to attend D3 schools?
There’s a lot of academic merit money at D3s — hitting the books will be more important than ever
Paying 50k a year just to have the opportunity to swim the 1650 /2 fly double is certainly a choice.
Sheesh, so UF has to half their mens roster? Texas just about, the same and thats not counting the influx of transfers i presume.
I listened to a podcast with Scott Stricklin and he kinda alluded to how this would likely happen in football. Since the previous notion of tallying ‘scholarships’ was too dated with NIL money potentially making scholarships just a form of payment.
Its kinda ironic that House one of the big names in this that effects all of college athletics and is mostly negative to swimming (in my eyes).
However right he was/is that the athletes should be compensated, there will be 11 SEC Schools cutting a total of 143 SEC Swimming Male Scholarship… Read more »
I imagine this will be an unpopular comment but honestly, I think he hurt swimming and esspecially US swmiming more than he imagines..
Of course on principle, everyone should get what they are worth. But if you really put pen to paper, im not positive most swimmers are a net positive value after include overhead and taking our scholarship costs. Travel, meets, facilities, nutrition, specialists, staff, equipment, etc etc. adds up.
I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future there programs that athletes have to pay to be on the travel roster at this rate.
And this is the big budget schools this article is about. How is… UNCW monetizing their swim team? or Liberty? or any team… Read more »
This ship was going to sail with or without Grant House putting his name on a lawsuit …
He wanted credit for it lets give him credit.
FYI – they’re cutting 143 SEC male *roster spots* and not scholarship spots (for now – that might be coming later).
The distinction between roster and scholarship spots is going away in the new models – it no longer matters. Every athlete (roster spot) is now a liability and expense.
They’re not cutting scholarship spots. Schools are limited to *like* nine full scholarships for swimming – cannot remember the exact number. They’re cutting spots on a roster.
Thanks Grant House!
This was an unstoppable wave. It was going to happen whether Grant House put his name on that lawsuit or not.
As a sport, swimming’s fault is for not seeing that it was coming and working to fortify itself against the damage.
The next two years are going to be hellacious for collegiate swimming. It’s going to be a bloodbath.
Are other D1 conferences about to follow suit with this model? Because at this point if every D1 conference we’re to follow this model how many total swimmers would be recruited per class under this?
@Braden Keith agreed. Care to elaborate on what you believe landscape changes on the next two years look like?
A lot of D1 Olympic sports programs are going to get cut, many others are going to see their funding reduced dramatically. Wouldn’t surprise me if we lost 25-30 D1 swimming programs in the next two years.
Probably a lot fewer training trips, probably no more guaranteed scholarships. Athletes are going to get fired. Maybe some schools will have robust club programs that they can bounce guys in-and-out of. More quad meets. Fewer meets that can’t be reached by bus.
I suspect we’ll got to an all-scholarships model, if scholarships are deemed to be part of the revenue share. Alston money will probably go away.
You’ll start to see a lot more competition within a university to climb the… Read more »
Well, that’s depressing.
Another fallout will be the diminishing results of future US Olympic teams, despite the NCAA advertising itself as “Where Olympians are made.” In 20 years, when the US Swim and T&F teams aren’t winning the medal count, the USOC will look back and wonder why they chose not to step in and support these programs.
It’s not that simple. Saving all these programs and scholarships would cost many millions of dollars per years. USOC doesn’t have unlimited resources.
I mentioned this in a different thread many months ago but it will be interesting to see how the national success is impacted by this. One of the beauties of the NCAA system is that it provides a healthy competitive ecosystem for young athletes to not have to choose professional career OR athletic career. This system forces the institutions hand to have few spots for that… luxury offering.
Source: Me – I swam with many nation team members when swimming abroad, I moved to the US to go to college and my peers either quit swimming to start a ‘real’ career’ or choose to swim professionally. It was never a choice to to both.
Regardless of whether it was coming or not, it’s a big slap in the face to the sport that gave him 7 years of eligibility. He put his name to the lawsuit knowing it would severely damage his own sport.