“Walking the $20.5 Million Tightrope: How Colleges Are Juggling Athlete Pay, Scholarships, and Olympic Sports”
College athletics is standing at a crossroads, and the balancing act has never been more precarious. With a $20.5 million average cost now tied to athlete compensation following recent legal and regulatory developments, universities across the United States are being forced to rethink not just how they fund their most visible sports but how they preserve the broad-based model that supports hundreds of student-athletes across dozens of Olympic and non-revenue sports. What was once a relatively straightforward model—where athletes received scholarships and support in exchange for representing their schools—is evolving rapidly into a new financial paradigm. This shift is raising fundamental questions about what college sports should look like in the years to come.
At the heart of this transformation is the rise of athlete compensation, driven by changes in NCAA policy, court rulings, and state legislation that have significantly expanded athletes’ rights to profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL). These changes have created new opportunities for athletes, especially in high-revenue sports like football and men’s basketball, to earn substantial income. But they have also introduced a new layer of financial strain for athletic departments that were already working within tight margins. The $20.5 million figure represents more than just a budget line—it symbolizes a paradigm shift in how we think about amateurism, equity, and the financial structure of collegiate sports.
For most athletic departments, football and men’s basketball generate the bulk of revenue. Television contracts, sponsorship deals, ticket sales, and merchandise combine to produce tens of millions of dollars, much of which has traditionally been redistributed to support other sports, including track and field, swimming, gymnastics, wrestling, and more. These so-called Olympic sports rarely turn a profit, but they are crucial to the identity and diversity of college athletics. They also serve as developmental pipelines for Team USA and international competition. Yet as more money is allocated toward compensating athletes in revenue-generating sports, less is available for the rest of the athletic ecosystem. That tension lies at the center of the $20.5 million tightrope walk universities now face.
The dilemma is stark. On one side is a growing consensus that athletes deserve a greater share of the wealth they help generate. College football Saturdays and March Madness have become billion-dollar spectacles, and the athletes who fuel that popularity have long argued for a seat at the financial table. Court rulings like the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston, which allowed greater educational benefits for athletes, and evolving NIL regulations have opened the door to more equitable compensation. Many now believe that outright employment models—where athletes are salaried university employees—may not be far off. That would fundamentally reshape not only how athletes are treated but how athletic departments are structured.
On the other side is the long-standing model of scholarship-based participation, where athletes compete as students first. This model emphasizes educational opportunity and broad participation. It is the model that enables Title IX compliance, supports women’s athletics, and offers opportunities in a wide variety of sports that do not generate revenue. This model also reflects a distinctly American approach to sports development, where colleges play a central role in identifying and nurturing athletic talent. In many other countries, elite athletes are developed in club systems and national programs, not universities. The American model is unique—and, many argue, worth preserving.
But preservation comes at a cost. If more money must go to compensating football and basketball players, where does that money come from? For many schools, the answer is not more revenue but hard choices. Cutting sports becomes an attractive option, especially when those sports don’t generate income and require significant operating budgets. Recent years have already seen high-profile cuts to Olympic sports programs at Stanford, Iowa, and Minnesota, among others. Although some programs were later reinstated due to public pressure and fundraising, the message is clear: Olympic sports are vulnerable in this new era of college athletics.
Universities are now faced with tough financial calculus. If an athletic department is required to pay out $20.5 million annually in direct or indirect compensation to athletes in high-profile sports, it must either find new sources of revenue or cut costs elsewhere. Finding new revenue is easier said than done. Many schools already rely heavily on conference payouts, donor contributions, and student fees. Television deals may continue to grow, especially with the consolidation of power in the Big Ten and SEC, but those gains are unevenly distributed and cannot be counted on to solve structural imbalances. Moreover, increasing commercial revenue can create conflicts with academic values and institutional missions, raising further concerns about the place of athletics within the broader university landscape.
Cutting costs, meanwhile, often means reducing opportunities. That reduction might come in the form of fewer scholarships, scaled-down facilities, smaller coaching staffs, or eliminated sports. Each of these options carries its own set of consequences. Reducing scholarships can diminish access to higher education, especially for lower-income athletes. Cutting coaching staff can compromise the athlete experience. Eliminating sports reduces the diversity of athletic opportunities and undermines Title IX commitments. It also jeopardizes the Olympic pipeline, as many U.S. Olympians first discovered their talents and trained at the collegiate level.
The growing financial strain is also creating new divides within college athletics. Wealthy programs in power conferences may be able to absorb the $20.5 million hit without major disruption, thanks to lucrative media rights deals and deep-pocketed donors. But mid-major programs and smaller Division I schools do not have the same financial flexibility. This disparity threatens to widen the gap between the haves and have-nots, potentially creating a two-tiered system where only a handful of schools can afford to compete at the highest level. The very notion of a unified NCAA Division I could be at risk, as some schools may be forced to drop levels or eliminate entire athletic departments to remain financially solvent.
Amid all this uncertainty, some are calling for systemic reform. Proposals include revenue-sharing models that guarantee a portion of income for athletes, centralized NIL marketplaces to regulate endorsement opportunities, and even a separate governance structure for revenue sports. Others advocate for a return to core educational principles, arguing that professional-style compensation undermines the student-athlete model and opens the door to a range of legal, logistical, and cultural challenges. Still others are working to strengthen Olympic and non-revenue sports by building independent funding models, leveraging alumni networks, and creating endowments that protect these programs from future cuts.
What’s clear is that the era of easy answers is over. The $20.5 million figure is not just an abstract number—it is a pressure point exposing deeper structural challenges in college athletics. It forces us to confront competing values: fairness versus sustainability, compensation versus opportunity, professionalism versus tradition. These are not just financial choices; they are philosophical ones. They reflect how we see college athletes—not just as performers on a stage, but as students, citizens, and future leaders.
As colleges continue to walk the tightrope, they must find ways to balance these competing priorities without sacrificing the heart of what makes college sports unique. That means reimagining funding structures, embracing innovation, and engaging in honest conversations about the trade-offs involved. It may require government intervention or new collective bargaining models. It may involve difficult choices and a redefinition of success, not just in terms of wins and losses, but in terms of lives changed, opportunities created, and values upheld.
In the end, the future of college sports may depend on whether we can envision a system where athletes are fairly compensated without destroying the diverse ecosystem that has made American college athletics the envy of the world. That future won’t come easily, and it won’t come cheap. But if we can navigate the $20.5 million tightrope with purpose and principle, it may still be possible to build a model that works for everyone—players, coaches, institutions, fans, and the sports themselves. The balancing act continues, and the stakes have never been higher.
