CSCAA Joins Organizations Calling for House Settlement Clarity
The College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) has joined three other coaching associations calling for answers on what post-House settlement athletics will look like.
The final House agreement was finalized late Friday night. CSCAA responded with a joint letter, released with the American Volleyball Coaches Association, the National Wrestling Coaches Association and the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
Among the chief concerns are:
- definition of student-athletes’ status as employees or some other category, which remains unanswered
- concerns about college sports “disproportionately benefit(ing) a small fraction of the NCAA student-athlete population while jeopardizing opportunities for others,” namely all the revenue going to football and basketball
- questions of Title IX compliance and where it falls within the NCAA’s diminished oversight and the new College Sports Commission, specifically how the gender equity it requires will be applied to payments and roster allocations
- calling on Congress to step in and legislate on such issues.
CSCAA has consistently prioritized the need to “protect and maintain:” That is, to protect Olympic sports by “establish proportional spending targets by classification to safeguard meaningful investment” in sports that are not football and basketball, and to maintain the current NCAA sports sponsorship requirements for schools that have football so that universities don’t cut everything but the prime revenue-generating sport.
From the letter:
We are concerned that the new financial obligations placed on schools will force administrators to divert attention and resources away from non-football and non-basketball sports—the very programs in which the majority of NCAA student-athletes participate. This is no hypothetical. Budget cuts and program eliminations have already occurred in anticipation of today’s decision, and more are likely to follow. Furthermore, the settlement leaves unaddressed the critical issues of employment classification for student-athletes and the application of Title IX, creating further uncertainty and risk for our sports programs in particular.
The future of college sports must not disproportionately benefit a small fraction of the NCAA student-athlete population while jeopardizing opportunities for others. Congress must intervene to address these pressing issues and ensure a balanced, equitable path forward for all student-athletes, including the protection of existing requirements of schools to maintain robust sport sponsorship and meaningful allocation of resources for non-football and non-basketball programs.
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