What is the future of NCAA Track and XC given the huge changes at NCAA and Power 5 football

So, how will high school NIL (e.g., see Pennsylvania) play into this? Will a high schooler under NIL contract be in a better bargaining position with respect to selecting a college program? Although, I suspect most high school NIL contracts will be local for sports medicine, gyms, car dealers, etc.

Makes sense for the majority of mid majors to just follow the Wisconsin system and go D3. Lacrosse, Stevens Point etc are thriving w outstanding facilities and strong enrollments and not spending millions on scholarships and trying to pretend to be big time when they clearly are not. If many of the mid major universities simply went D3 they could solve their problems quite quickly

I agree. Buh Bye mud majors from the "D1" league. they'll end up in a different division. Even if you think your basketball team will save you, it won't. Even If you're Gonzaga, Georgetown, or Villanova... your XC/TF team won't be following them to any new super conference as they'll be invited as basketball only to preserve the NCAA tourney money. I, for one, am exited about it. someone hand me the popcorn

NAU will also be in the soon to be D2/3.

This website is so much more bearable now that we have the down vote feature.

See: college wrestling and college gymnastics

Indie teams and leagues will replace college sports. We want to make money!

I agree-something is going to happen. It seems that many of the cross subsidies that characterize NCAA athletics are being chipped away: the subsidy from two major sports to minor sports, the subsidy from athletes to schools and the TV subsidies from large well known football programs to everyday programs. Scholarships for minor sports will be cut across the board as the most profitable sport becomes a G league for the NFL and perhaps the majority of programs will go to a DIII format. Track is lucky in that it can thrive in a DIII format as times determine quality as much as competition. XC is also fortunate that it costs almost nothing to run an XC program.

Problem is it also brings in zero dollars and generates zero excitement. Woman's soccer might not be popular but it at least generates a little bit of excitement on campus if your team goes in a run..

Realistically if the NCAA cuts the number of sports requirement., Tons of programs will get cut. They largely exists as charity and history. Especially when you get out of power 5 DI.

Public Secondary Schools, Parochial Secondary Schools, 2 Year Colleges, and 4 Year Colleges are passe for pro sports in 2022.

The future is Ethereum Contract based pro teams for high school preps, college aged, and post college.

If football leaves the ncaa and the players are not awarded scholarships from the school, but are instead paid with NIL money, then title ix wouldnt apply. The men are not receiving a grand in aid to the school, so the football numbers would be off the books in regard to title ix.

I hope football does break away, and the rest of the sports can go back to some semblance of a conference that makes sense geographically.

Exactly right, cross country is a charity with zero advantages. Go to NAU, Stanford, Colorado, Oregon and poll the current student body and less than 1% could name one member of the xc teams, even if it was multiple choice, and that’s probably encapsulating members of the track team and girlfriends and boyfriends of team members. Ask them to name the starting QB and more than 10% would get it.

Colleges were funding track and xc before football and basketball were minor league sports, or had big tv packages, colleges where the football team loses money and have no tv deal still fund track. I think we will be ok, maybe even better off.

I share a lot of the “we are about to lose tons of scholarships” anxiety prevalent in this thread, but why isn’t this simply the right answer?

Quite simply: it’s a radically different era and colleges and their athletic departments have very different priorities now.

Sorry to burst your bubble but Power conference XC and track will disappear completely. If the school starts paying football and basketball players salaries (which will happen eventually) then where will the money come from. Non revenue sports...aka everyone else will disappear. Mid majors, D2, D3, and NAIA will be positioned to carry on the sport. NAIA will be uniquely positioned since they will lose 0 revenue from the NCAA collapse. All the mid majors will have to drop football to survive which will save D1 track on some level. I do not know what a school like Oregon does though. If they cut the track program then Phil Knight will turn the money faucet off. I think it is a very bad time to be an NCAA coach. Especially D1.

I believe that XC (and maybe track) have one or two strong bargaining chips, each.

XC: Academics and low cost of operation

Track: Diversity and history

So what does this mean? Cross country can EASILY survive following a DIII model. Academic awards to fund the majority of tuition expenses. The rest easily comes from student fees and donations. Track and field needs to beat the drum of diversity. Both men and women provide great options for minorities. Women's T&F and XC specifically will ALWAYS live on if Title IX remains in force purely to buoy the bigger men's sports.

Lastly, I just want to point out that at a school like NAU, the Track/XC instagram has 20k followers. The NAU football instagram has 7.6k. I'm not going to interpret those numbers but thought I'd offer it for discussion.

I just don't buy it. Schools have a long tradition in sports that aren't huge businesses. I don't think they will immediately just drop every "nonrevenue" sport once football is gone. No reason to run around with your hair on fire. Sure it will be different, but it won't be some Doomsday scenario.