We are in the middle of a cultural revolution in sports. Few industries have undergone such an abrupt paradigm shift on such a national scale. With broadcast dollars and NIL deals on full display, the revenue stream of college sports is in question. There’s a lot of focus on the revenue generators – mainly football and basketball – to understand who is entitled to what: university and conference leadership, NCAA, sponsors, partner and donors, and of course current and former athletes. But scrutinizing the football sidelines on College GameDay doesn’t even begin to paint the full picture.

Just ask the stakeholders not on those sidelines.

While the courts grapple with a framework that opens the compensation model for athletes, it’s not just Power Four conference players that are impacted. Our entire complex sports system, from youth sports all the way up to pro, is an intricate pipeline with many billions of dollars in value woven throughout.

The youth industry alone will be worth $69.4B by 2030, and much of that infrastructure is predicated on the investment parents are willing to make because their kid might be a future DI lacrosse or soccer star – even if it is a “non-revenue” sport. Dropping or devaluing these sports is a big concern.

The $11.4B Olympic brand has a similar conundrum. Collegiate sports are the Olympic pipeline. The athletes we saw compete in Paris were almost entirely non-revenue US collegiate athletes, and that pipeline is global. If this pipeline disappears, USOPC has a real funding issue.

And we can’t talk about stakeholders without addressing women’s sports – which largely fall on the non-revenue side of the balance sheet but make up nearly half of all DI athletes. Since Title IX was implemented 50 years ago – female high school participation jumped by more than 3 million, and today more than 225,000 compete at the DI level. That pipeline is not as much a fast track to pro as it is to the boardroom. An astounding 94% of C-suite women were collegiate athletes, validating sports in yet another monetary way.

The preliminary House v. NCAA settlement addressing NIL, revenue sharing, and collegiate regulations is the latest development in a slow stakeholder awakening. Until now, the impact of pending policy changes has been unclear at best.

But history tells us uncertainty breeds risk.

Schools, conferences, and athletic directors have tough decisions to make, and how they communicate around these decisions will be critical. Donors are watching and waiting. Dissatisfied athletes can opt out or transfer. And the broader stakeholder pipeline stretching from youth to professional sports has skin in the game because they’re worried about revenue too, just not necessarily the revenue in the pockets of the NCAA, universities, and conferences.

It’s an exciting time. There is tremendous risk – and value – tied to how effectively stakeholders engage. The need for sports advocacy is far bigger than any single industry; it’s a cultural phenomenon, and as you might expect, passion runs deep. Like in so many successful industry transformations before this, the best communicators win. Learn how our Sports Practice can help you get in the game.

Game on: The Need for Sports Advocacy