A trio of Olympic champions are in Washington, D.C., to discuss the ramifications of the controversial California State Assembly Bill 252 (AB 252), which many have regarded as a threat to the future of Olympic sports in the United States.
Anthony Ervin, Maya Dirado and Summer Sanders will meet with legislators on Capitol Hill to discuss the bill on Tuesday, according to Sports Illustrated (SI)’s Pat Forde, which was passed by the California Assembly on June 1 and is now headed to the state senate later this summer.
News: American swimming gold medalists are heading to Capitol Hill tomorrow to discuss the potential Olympic consequences of the California college sports revenue-sharing bill.
“We’ll see some of our geopolitical rivals topping us in medal counts.”https://t.co/ig8zY8LP5p
— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) June 13, 2023
AB 252, known as the College Protection Act, aims to create a revenue-sharing arrangement between schools and student-athletes that compete in revenue-generating sports in the state.
As a result, non-revenue-generating sports were seemingly put at risk, with significantly less funding coming their way, though amendments made prior to it being passed seemed to address those concerns.
The amendments put in place would evenly divide money between men’s and women’s teams and allow schools to use additional funds to “ensure that non-revenue-generating sports such as our Olympic sports are maintained and could receive additional funding” without that money being considered revenue in the financial formula.
Despite that, Ervin told SI that he feels “threatened” by the bill and that the trickle-down effect would be seen in the U.S. medal tally at future Olympics.
“Without the opportunity to pursue both an education and sport, morale will wither and we’ll see some of our geopolitical rivals topping us in [Olympic] medal counts,” Ervin said.
Ervin, a 42-year-old four-time Olympic medalist, competed for Cal in the NCAA from 1999 to 2003, winning Olympic gold in the men’s 50 free in Sydney 2000 shortly after his freshman year.
He believes the bill could do irreparable damage to the U.S. Olympic movement, with fewer opportunities to train in the collegiate system ultimately leading to weaker Olympic teams.
“I feel threatened,” Ervin said. “This bill is telling us—swimmers, Olympic sports athletes of all kinds—that our labor has no value at all, that we bring no value to the country. When we win medals and raise our flag—they have no value. Therefore, they’re going to strip away our efforts to get an education and pursue glory for our country. And I think that’s just sad.”
Both Ervin and Dirado are members of the USA Swimming Board of Directors.
Sanders and Dirado both competed for Stanford collegiately and won four Olympic medals during their career, with Sanders winning two gold, one silver and one bronze in 1992, and Dirado earning the exact same tally in 2016.
The three swimmers will meet with a variety of lawmakers, including Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (a Republican from California), on Tuesday, according to SI.
“We want athletes to have all the support in the world,” Sanders said. “We love the fact that they’re able to create their own brand and make sure they have money coming in from NIL, but I just can’t comprehend how all those sports are going to exist under this financial model.
“The worry is that college athletics will become all about football and basketball. And all the other sports, if they’re lucky, will become club sports. Or they may go away. And where will our Olympians find themselves?”
SI’s Forde notes that while the amendments have “appeased some lawmakers,” the attempts to safeguard Olympic sports could be “impractical” in the real world.
“I don’t think there’s a very good understanding of the economics of sport,” Ervin said. “Not at all.”
Dirado added that they want the politicians to understand the consequences that could come about if football and basketball are given separate funding.
“It’s just kind of a choice we’re staring in the face right now,” Dirado said. “As much as we agree that athletes should be compensated for what they bring in, there’s a lot of layers to this. There’s a lot of ways that benefits get accrued to schools and to the country as a whole.
“We’re making sure that Americans know, that as good as we feel every four years at the Olympics when our teams are absolutely dominating, it is not guaranteed and a lot of that is predicated on the collegiate Olympic-sport model. We understand the economic realities, and it’s more just making sure the consequences are clear of what a bill like this would mean.”
geopolitical rivals? That is not a reason for medal count. It is also not a reason that really motivates swimmers.
It’s funny to compile this individuals posts, and then look into their linked addresses.
Really? “Complete nutjob” who has an undergraduate and a masters degree from Cal, was an NCAA All-Americanand a couple Olympic medals (over 16 years apart) who has served the sport on the dry side in various ways as a USA Swimming delegate and committee member and Board member? That guy is “delusional”?
Seems to me like he has read the bill and is using his platform and the position he has earned in our sport to try to help future athletes.
Get lost, Andrew.
After taking a knee, Ervin needs to go to a safe space because he feels threatened. I really hate this guy.
And I hate you
Lol, an American citizen exercises his first amendment rights, stands by his convictions, and fights for the sport. He serves as one of the few examples of sport superstars to reach the pinnacle of competition before nearly leaving the sport to actually question whether his sacrifices for the sport made him happy. Unlike a lot of early bloomers, he had a life away from the sport for years to actually develop an identity separate from his professional athlete persona. He then came back 16 years later to prove just how much he does love swimming.
Criticize the concept of safe spaces all you want- but maybe someone who has proven himself at the highest levels of competition, who has faced… Read more »
He is also faster than you.
Ah yes, the good old he’s a better swimmer than me excuse which somehow invalidates my opinion
If they compare revenue to expenses, there is not a single California University that makes money in football!
If anything, it’ll just make Olympic-caliber swimmers train long course year round. And as our foreign commenters like to tell us all the goddamn time, this would make the US better. (Because zee bathtoob is currently holding us back.)
Yeah, but what about the college athlete that may no longer get a scholarship for college. They get denied majoring in Engineering or education where they can work at a job after swimming. I think Anthony, and Maya and Summer are worried that this may happen if some people in college get paid while others may not get scholarships
But what does that have to do with the Federal Government??
Is every federal tax payer supposed to pay to subsidize collegiate sports?
If the companies need engineers they should pay for kids to get degrees and give them jobs after they graduate. I have up an offer from UPS to do that in the 80s because I wanted to swim (D3). I was an idiot but my choice.
What about the football player that would now get paid for their work? Why does their “profitable” labor need to go to a lacrosse player that wants to major in finance?
Just imagine any other aspect of American life being set up this way and how insane people would go.
I’m all about spreading the wealth around when it comes to pretty much everything, but not when that wealth is generated by teenage athletes and it then goes to other, less-good teenage athletes. (*The bigger issue that most of that money doesn’t go to athletes at all, of course.)
Not “other, less-good teenage athletes.” we’re talking about the revenue programs, bring in to each school.
Swimming is never going to bring in as much money as football at any given college. That is a fact. However, we’re talking about elite, world-caliber athletes/programs at a school like Virginia being majorly impacted simply because they don’t bring in the same dollar amount of the football program.
Your comment of them being “less good athletes” doesn’t ring true ….we’re talking about a different metric of measurement that is unfair and will have ripple effect to enrollment, loans, and other major monetary student concerns
Can someone explain why its bad
From the article:
>The worry is that college athletics will become all about football and basketball.
Where’s Steve Nolan with the always has been spaceman meme.
newsflash, it already is all about football and basketball. This just makes it transparent.
It would be financially easier to justify cutting non-revenue sports. The revenue funding model was designed to share money that revenue sports earn between mens and womens teams with excess funding being distributed to athletes. Most non-revenue sports lose money. To maximize the amount of money distributed to money-making teams, ADs might look to remove non-money making teams that might eat up shared revenue. Given title IX, one can further guess that men’s non-revenue sports would take the biggest hit, followed by women’s non-revenue sports.
When you further consider that many Division 1 football and basketball programs operate in the red, this model would create greater incentives for athletic departments with dreams of cashing in on football/basketball tv contracts… Read more »
I agree with all the analysis. But I wish none of it was the federal government’s business
Given that most California state schools aren’t even 50% funded by the state, can anyone be surprised by the idea that classifying athletes as de facto employees who can eventually be taxed on income received through lucrative TV deals might be beneficial to the state? Given the UC’s history of maximizing income despite the ethical implications (A few years ago, UCs were found to be admitting a higher percentage of out-of-state applicants who paid more toward tuition than in-state applicants… whose taxes help fund said institutions), I wish I could say this was surprising…
But it’s okay for state governments to weigh in? Why? If there’s any regulation at all, doesn’t it make sense for it to be uniform across the country so schools and student/athletes are on equal footing?
Yeah I think this is a weird take, probably based not in reality but in a general desire to keep the federal government out of things. Regulating interstate commerce is explicitly a power given to them in the constitution, and RCP you laid out exactly why. Having a patchwork of rules across the country is, essentially, the end of the whole system.
I’ve said this many times, but what you laid out is basically the doom-spiral that I always wind up in.
I think it’s both 1) fair for student-athletes to ask for payment and NIL and all that stuff, and 2) think it’s going to lead to the demise of college athletics as we know them today.
Is it worth keeping college athletics the way they currently are?
I don’t really think it’s a system you’d design the same way from the ground-up right now.
Academics and sports are completely separated in most countries, and maybe that is the best way. However, it also leads to lack of access for families that don’t have the $$$$. That in turn leads to exploitation of gifted players without means being pretty much treated like chattel. Feel free to tell me what the better system is. Those that think that swimming is a country club sport in the US have no idea how much worse it is in other countries.
Scholarships for swimming don’t show up until you’re in your late teens, I don’t think what you’re saying is true at all.
I feel like if athletes earning NIL should be required to pay their full tuition (or they actually counted their scholarship as compensation). This would make them employees of… either the NCAA, the school or both.
Classify athletes in revenue sports as employees unaffiliated with the NCAA, the NCAA could survive sans basketball and football. Get rid of the revenue sharing, instead investing in a minor-league system partnered with the NBA/NFL. Make them operate independently of their respective college and NCAA and force the new minor league system to take care of its own marketing, tv deals, filming, revenue distribution, and earn enough money to pay their coaches independently (without state funds).
Schools that can’t compete will cut… Read more »
In the case of swimming the NCAA’s marketing of the sport in substandard at best I would also argue that USA Swimming efforts on this front leave much to be desired as well … as a starting point the Olympic Sports need to do a better job of watching their backs
On the one hand, I think the demise of college athletics as we know them today isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’ve said it multiple times on various NCAA articles here, but I’m very critical of the NCAA as an institution and all it entails. I would be 100% fine with dissolving the NCAA entirely and starting over from step 1.
In my ideal world, football, basketball, and baseball would be removed from the NCAA and would be run as feeder leagues to the pros, with the NFL/NBA/MLB being responsible for operating everything via some sort of partnership with the schools, with the pros taking on the bulk of the financial burden. I envision something along the lines of MLB’s… Read more »
But if you’re any of the people in charge, do NCAA football/basketball/baseball as minor leagues really work for you? I don’t think they lok at minor league sports revenue figures today and say “yeah, that’s a business we want to be in.” The only one of those systems that has sort of worked is baseball, and even that not really – top MLB teams have about $25 million/year in revenue, a fraction of what Texas football makes.
If push came to shove, I think it would actually happen in the opposite direction: they’d say “football, basketball, y’all are professionals. Everyone else, it’s your hobby, not your vocation – spin off and go make your own thing happen.”
And then they’d… Read more »
There’s no way Saban’s going back to the NFL, even as a younger, less rich version of himself. He tried it once. It was a bust.
FYI,
According to the NCAA, only 25 of the 65 Division I schools ended up making money. More so, the average amount earned was a little under $8,000,000, much less than you might have expected.
How Much Money Is Made From College Athletics?
http://www.theedadvocate.org/how-much-money-is-made-from-college-athletics/
That source is not good for a number of reasons. The least of which is that there are way more than 65 Division I schools. 65 refers to Power 5 schools.
There are a few other caveats and context that are needed to tell the full story here, including that most of those 65 schools turn a profit on football, and that profit is then drained by sports like swimming & diving.
Division I schools would be barred from “cutting any sport or funding for athletic scholarships” under a recent amendment to AB 252.