| Victoria Jackson
Significant changes are coming to American college sports in 2025: schools are getting their ducks in a row to begin revenue sharing with athletes (mostly football and basketball athletes) for the first time in history, the new Congress will consider a raft of new legislative proposals to redesign college sport, and Bill Belichick is bringing the Patriots Way to the University of North Carolina. But the most globally significant issue related to college sports is not getting the attention it deserves: What will become of the world’s Olympic development if these changes to American college sports do not take into consideration their implications for international athletes?
According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association, over 25,000 international athletes are currently competing at NCAA schools. Many of them are the best U-23 athletes in the world in their respective sports. This fall alone, the University of Vermont won its first men’s soccer national championship with a roster of international talent including five Germans and additional athletes from Hungary, Canada, Israel, Hong Kong, and Gibraltar. Kenyan Doris Lemngole won the Alabama Crimson Tide the NCAA individual women’s cross country title. A Brit and a Spaniard (Lui Maxted and Pedro Vives) combined to earn TCU a men’s doubles title in tennis (the most international NCAA sport), and international athletes starred on the UNC women’s soccer, UCLA men’s water polo, and Northwestern field hockey teams that all took home national championships as well.
The best U-23 athletes in the world come to the American NCAA system because it is the best U-23 Olympic development system in the world. Athletes enjoy the world’s best athletic performance facilities, coaches, and competition (since they’re all electing to come here)… and world-class university educational experiences to boot. And most of this is made possible by the revenue college football brings into their universities, enabling athletes from all over the world to go on to represent their countries and earn medals in other sports at the Olympic Games. At the Tokyo and Rio Olympic Games, the Pac-12 Conference (the “Conference of Champions,” thanks to its Olympic sports) would have placed 5th in the medal table, if it were a country. In Paris, the Big Ten Conference sent 356 athletes representing 64 nations and earned 98 medals, and the Southeastern Conference was only slightly behind, with 319 athletes repping 78 nations and earning 83 medals. If you want to compete in the Olympic Games, one of the best ways to make that a reality is to go to the USA and compete in the collegiate system.
Take, for example, our beloved Sun Devil, Léon Marchand. (You may know him better as the French darling of the Paris Olympic Games.) Marchand came to Arizona State University to train with Bob Bowman, ASU coach and former coach of legendary USA swimmer Michael Phelps, because Marchand understood that the American collegiate system represented the best environment for him to develop into the most successful athlete at his home country’s 2024 Olympic Games.
While college sports are one of the greatest success stories of American colleges’ global ambitions, American sports leaders—and international sports federations—have largely taken this all for granted.
But if American college sports leaders implementing new policies and members of Congress drafting new legislation aren’t careful, they could end up with a system that no longer supports international athletes, who have no obvious advocate in (the many, many) policy conversations happening in DC.
What we at the Great Game Lab will be looking for in 2025 are stories of American college teams with international rosters that explore the cultural richness that makes up an important element of their success. We will be looking for sports leaders who speak to the value of international player composition in Olympic development, and we will be bringing the receipts, producing research showing the value of U-23 sports leagues that draw from an international pool of talent—value both on and off the pitch.