When the Law Meets the Locker Room: How Legal Shifts Are Quietly Dismantling Olympic Sports

Courtesy: Dr. Chelsea Ale.

Opinions in this op-ed don’t necessarily reflect the views of SwimSwam.

As the legal landscape of collegiate athletics undergoes a seismic shift, the implications are reaching far beyond football and basketball. While NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) rights and the pending House v. NCAA case have dominated headlines, the silent casualties of this legal reckoning are the Olympic sports that have long depended on the NCAA structure to survive.

Diving is one of them.

At its core, the evolving legal environment is about fairness: ensuring that student-athletes—many of whom generate millions in revenue for their schools—receive a share of the pie. But in correcting decades of financial imbalance, we are now exposing how fragile the structure really is for non-revenue sports.

House v. NCAA, Conference Roster Caps, and the Financial Fallout

The House v. NCAA case, currently moving through the courts, challenges the NCAA’s long-standing amateurism model. If the courts rule in favor of the plaintiffs, universities may be required to pay athletes directly, recognize them as employees, or share broadcast revenues retroactively. That’s not just a philosophical shift—it’s a financial one that could cost schools tens of millions of dollars.

In preparation, schools are already making cuts. But it’s not just institutional decisions driving this trend—conferences are stepping in too. For example, the SEC and other conferences are implementing new roster limits to preemptively prepare for a future of revenue sharing and athlete compensation. These roster caps are forcing athletic departments to cut dozens of student-athletes—even in cases where schools might have otherwise chosen to keep those athletes or programs.

That means sports like diving—often overlooked, underfunded, and misunderstood—are among the first to go. Not because of performance or value, but because legal and regulatory shifts are reducing the number of athletes a program can carry.

Employment Status and Title IX

Legal scholars have also raised concerns about how student-athlete employment status could intersect with Title IX. If athletes are recognized as employees, will universities be legally obligated to maintain gender equity in their payrolls? And what does that mean for women’s diving, a sport that has traditionally provided opportunities in part due to Title IX enforcement?

In addition, if compensation becomes tied to commercial value or performance metrics, many female-dominated or Olympic sports may see reduced institutional support. The legal question then becomes: can schools justify cutting programs if doing so leads to gender imbalance in athlete compensation or opportunity? And who will enforce it?

Due Process and Program Elimination

For athletes like collegiate divers, the legal questions don’t end with pay. As programs are eliminated, athletes are often left without recourse. There are no hearings, no appeals, no formal due process. Scholarships can vanish overnight. Athletes are forced to transfer, sit out, or leave the sport entirely. While this may not violate current legal standards, it raises serious ethical and policy concerns about student-athlete rights.

If the courts and the NCAA begin to treat athletes more like employees, the absence of labor protections—such as contract guarantees, severance, or grievance procedures—becomes even more glaring. We’re in a legal gray zone where athletes have new rights, but not new protections.

USA Diving and the Absence of a Safety Net

Compounding this legal uncertainty is the failure of national governing bodies like USA Diving to prepare for the fallout. While USA Diving benefits from NCAA athletes filling its Olympic pipeline, it does not have the resources—or perhaps the strategic foresight—to build an alternative development system. Unlike gymnastics, which has a robust club and pro infrastructure, diving has relied almost entirely on college programs.

As a result, when those programs vanish due to legal and financial pressure, there is no fallback.

The Road Ahead

The legal changes reshaping college sports are, in many ways, long overdue. Ensuring that athletes are compensated fairly, recognized for their labor, and supported as they pursue both education and sport is a just cause. But as the industry pivots to meet new legal obligations, we must be careful not to trade one form of injustice for another.

Non-revenue and Olympic sports like diving are especially vulnerable in this transition. These programs don’t bring in major media dollars, but they offer something else: access to education, international representation, gender equity, and the development of future leaders and Olympians. These benefits are harder to quantify but no less essential.

Protecting these sports requires more than nostalgia—it requires action. Policymakers, university leaders, and national governing bodies must come together to:

• Develop legal frameworks that extend athlete protections beyond revenue sports
• Explore funding models that include donor campaigns, endowments, or shared resource initiatives
• Recognize the educational, Olympic, and community value of these programs when making cuts
• Ensure Title IX remains a functional and enforceable safeguard in the new employment-based model

The courts are changing the rules. But without a coordinated policy response and structural support, entire sports—along with the athletes who dedicate their lives to them—could be erased.

And once they’re gone, the law won’t bring them back.

ABOUT DR. CHELSEA ALE

Dr. Chelsea Ale is a professor of Sport Management at the University of Alabama, a former elite diving coach, and President of the U.S. Professional Diving Coaches Association. She holds a Ph.D. in Sport Management and has spent over 25 years in the sport as an athlete, coach, and researcher.