College Swimming Will Soon Be Divided Among Have’s and Have Not’s
By the fall, the fundamental reshaping of college swimming will be complete. Dozens of universities have already changed their conference affiliation, with the search for a new television rights deal dooming the Pac-12. Five power conferences became four, and Cal and Stanford ended up finding an ironic home in the Atlantic Coast Conference. And when the House settlement is adopted for the 2025-26 season, schools in opted-in conferences will share revenue directly with athletes while instituting sport-specific roster caps for the first time.
In the new realities of college athletics, universities can give full scholarships to every athlete on a roster if they so desire, but the allocation of funds will be at the discretion of the athletic department. Instead of the NCAA capping swimming and diving scholarships at 14 for women and 9.9 for men, it will be the individual schools making the budgeting decisions. The elimination of a salary cap means schools with the most resources — the wealthy ones — will enter each season with a massive advantage over those without.
Among the swim teams in the best position moving forward is the University of Texas, which will fully fund almost all sports, including swimming. According to the Austin American-Statesman, Longhorns athletic director Chris Del Conte announced his athletic department will jump from 266.2 scholarships to 466. That includes 30 for women’s swimming and diving and 22 for the men’s program. The lower total on the men’s side reflects the roster cap imposed by the Southeastern Conference.
Texas freestyler Luke Hobson — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
Texas has not exactly lacked for success in swimming: under Eddie Reese, the men’s team captured 15 national titles, and the group has already entered the championship conversation in year one under Reese’s successor, Bob Bowman. The Texas women’s team has finished second at the NCAA Championships for three consecutive seasons under the direction of Carol Capitani, with a strong chance of remaining in that spot in 2025.
Moving forward, Texas will have the resources to continue attracting the best swimmers and divers to build up powerful rosters. Most of the Longhorns’ rivals, both in the SEC and across the country, have yet to reveal their full budgets, but it is abundantly clear that most will be unable to match these Texas expenditures. Some programs will see lesser increases while others remain at current scholarship limits. For universities preferring to divert money to high-revenue programs in football and basketball, swimming could lose funding or be cut altogether.
There will be have’s and have not’s in college swimming. Such a polarized future for the sport has never been so evident. These lesser-funded schools will still be able to attract talent based on how they choose to dole out their limited scholarship dollars but not at a championship level.
A men’s program remaining at 9.9 scholarships could still pursue top swimmers, but anyone accepting a full scholarship to one of these schools would do so accepting their program’s tough challenge in building a championship-level roster around them. More likely, these programs will aim for the next level of prospects who would be willing to accept partial scholarships in exchange for a chance to race at a power-conference program. Coaches at these schools would seek creative methods of team-building, perhaps focusing on international recruiting or aiming for swimmers they feel have higher upside to give them a chance against the big-money teams.
The obvious comparison is Major League Baseball, where rich teams reign supreme. The Los Angeles Dodgers, with a $265,870,208 payroll that ranked third-highest out of 30 teams, captured the World Series title last season. Their championship opponent was the New York Yankees, the second-highest spending team. Back out to the League Championship Series, and the involved teams also included the New York Mets, with the sport’s highest payroll, and the Cleveland Guardians, whose expenditures were 23rd most in the Majors.
Guess which one of those teams is the outlier among the top contenders. Here’s a hint: It’s not one of the three representing the biggest media markets in the United States. Those are baseball’s “rich” teams. The 12 teams to reach last year’s Postseason included the six highest spenders plus six others who found creative ways to build competitive rosters.
Beginning next season, that will be the case for swimming beginning next swimming. However, the discrepancies between those with and those without will be even greater. Unlike in baseball, swim teams will not have the benefit of young talent playing for close to league minimum salary for the first three or four years of their careers before reaching a process known as salary arbitration. In the end, MLB teams control players’ rights until they reach six seasons of service time.
College athletes, on the other hand, can enter the transfer portal during each offseason in pursuit of a more desirable compensation package. That’s a harsh truth to accept for those longing for the days of true amateur sports, when the term “student-athlete” was not such a misnomer, when money had yet to become the primary motivation behind in college athletics.
That old model is now a dinosaur. College athletics has become an arms race, and in swimming, Texas is the clear early leader.
At least it gives you newer issues to write about, David!
Texas men’s swimming will not be able to develop freshmen and be competitive at NCAA level with only 22 slots. I suspect they will have to “raid” through transfers promising freshmen and sophomores from other schools. This is already happening in other schools and sports.
This has to be written by AI. When all the teams have all the same number of scholarships there will be more competition and a more even playing field since no team will be able to hoard great swimmers.
It doesn’t level the playing field when different conferences allow different numbers of roster spots. I’ve heard ASU is fully funding 30 spots while the SEC has settled at 22.