Funding of Olympic sports a bargaining chip as NCAA seeks antitrust help, AP sources say

College sports leaders seeking antitrust and other protections from Congress have a potential bargaining chip: School assurances that they will provide funding for their increasingly imperiled Olympic programs, by far the biggest pipeline of talent for Team USA.

Four people familiar with the talks told The Associated Press that lawmakers, mostly from the Democratic side that will need to provide votes to help any legislation pass the Senate, have been approached by college sports experts and policy shapers to explore options in exchange for support of a bill that some Democrats oppose.

One of the clearest tradeoffs would be for an idea that enjoys bipartisan support: helping collegiate Olympic sports programs.

Those programs produce around three-quarters of U.S. Olympians at a typical Summer Games, but some are on uncertain footing in the wake of the $2.8 billion House settlement that clears the way for schools to begin sharing revenue directly with their athletes as early as next week. Most of that money will go to football and basketball – the moneymakers – in this new era of name, image and likeness payments to players.

The people who spoke to AP did so on condition of anonymity because of the still-evolving and uncertain nature of the talks. But it’s no secret that the NCAA and its biggest conferences are not convinced that the House settlement will end all their problems.

The NCAA is lobbying for a bill that would supersede state laws that set different rules for NIL; ensure athletes do not get employment status; and provide limited antitrust protection. One key issue is the handful of lawsuits challenging the NCAA’s longstanding rule of giving athletes five years to complete four seasons of eligibility.

“I get why limited liability is a big ask,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said. “But when it comes to limited liability around basic rulemaking, the consequences of this for the next generation of young people if you play this thing out are enormous.”

In a sign of the difficulty the NCAA might have in getting legislation passed, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who has played a large role in shaping policy for college sports, told AP that athletes “deserve real reform and independent oversight of college sports.”

“Congressional legislation must provide strong and enforceable protections for their health, safety, and economic rights and transparency to protect non-revenue-generating sports, rather than merely offering a blank check to the NCAA to return to the status quo,” Blumenthal said.

While the U.S. government is forbidden by law from funding Olympic teams, there is no such prohibition on government funding for universities and their sports programs. One idea would be for the bill to include promises of certain levels of funding for college Olympic sports programs – some of which could be raised through federal grants to help the schools offset the cost.

“It would depend upon what they have in mind,” Baker said when asked about the idea. “We’d be open to a conversation about that because those sports are important and they matter.”

The issue is complicated and funding sources are going to be under pressure: Over the next year alone, each D-I school is allowed to share up to $20.5 million in revenue with its athletes and there are extra millions being committed to additional scholarships – for instance, in the case of Michigan, $6.2 million. All those figures are increasing under terms of the settlement and the money has to come from somewhere.

As of late May, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee had tallied about 40 Olympic sports programs cut in Division I since the beginning of 2024 (but also 18 programs added) as schools prepare for the new financial realities.

Only three – the Virginia men’s and women’s diving programs and the Utah beach volleyball program – came from schools among the Power Four conferences that were co-defendants in the House case. Still, countless other teams have been reconfiguring their lineups with roster caps in place alongside unlimited scholarships, a combination that is forcing hard decisions.

Leaders inside the USOPC are optimistic that schools that generate the most talent – for instance, the 39 medals won by Stanford athletes at last year’s Paris Games would have placed the school 11th on the overall medal table – will retain robust Olympic sports programs and that Congress is on board with helping.

“We have no reason to believe that there’s not real alignment from all the parties, including members of Congress, who have indicated to us a very real concern for Olympic and Paralympic sport,” USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland said.

Though a strictly partisan bill could pass the narrowly divided House, for it to become law it would need at least seven Democratic votes in the Senate to break a filibuster.

In 2023, Blumenthal and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., teamed with Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., to draft a bill that would have provided some antitrust protection in exchange for a number of guarantees, including the establishment of a health and safety trust fund for athletes who deal with long-term injuries from college sports.

Among the NCAA’s “core guarantees” put in place last year, schools are now required to cover medical costs for athletic-related injuries for at least two years after players leave school.

“One of the messages was ‘clean up your own house first, then come talk to us,'” Baker said of his conversations with lawmakers. “So we did some of the things that were aligned with some of the previous legislation.”

The big question is whether those moves, added to any guarantees for Olympic sports, would be enough to overcome Democratic reluctance to strip or limit legal rights of college athletes.