The NCAA is in active discussions with USA Gymnastics about how to revamp the men’s college gymnastics championships, and those discussions could lead to major event alignment, personnel sharing or cross-selling partnerships.
The talks are part of a pilot program by the U.S. National Team aimed at maintaining a vital pipeline between college sports and the Olympics. Stakeholders on both sides are seeking greater visibility and improved financial sustainability for men’s gymnastics, a model that could eventually be replicated in other sports threatened by ongoing changes across the college sports landscape.
“want [national governing body] “We want university leaders to have a seat at the table to help grow sports at the collegiate level,” Rocky Harris, Team USA’s director of sports and player services, said in an interview. “That’s important because they know sports better than anybody. They know what works, what doesn’t work, how they can leverage it, how they can commercialize it.”
Among the many possibilities discussed for men’s gymnastics was the creation of coordinated events — perhaps USAG (United States Gymnastics) youth regionals held at the same time as the NCAA championships in the same city or venue, according to people who attended the meeting. They also discussed more mundane but equally important topics, such as staffing synergies that could reduce costs, sponsorship packages that could increase revenue and legal changes to make the sport more attractive to schools and media partners.
The discussions took place as part of Team USA’s College Sports Sustainability Think Tank, an initiative launched in 2020 to bridge the gap between NCAA sports and the Olympics. American college sports’ vast infrastructure is one of the main drivers of its incredible Olympic success, but that model has come under strain in recent years, first by cuts related to the COVID pandemic and now by concerns that the increasing professionalization of football and basketball will divert resources from other, less-revenue producing sports.
This is especially nuanced in men’s Olympic sports due to Title IX considerations, and even more so in men’s gymnastics. There are just 15 collegiate programs in men’s gymnastics, one of the fewest of any NCAA-sponsored sport. The U.S. team, which selected its Olympic roster at last weekend’s trials, has relied heavily on those teams as a feeder system. All five gymnasts and the two alternates who will travel to the Olympics are current college athletes or former NCAA stars.
Gymnastics is also an expensive sport for colleges: The eight public FBS schools that offer men’s gymnastics reported an average budget of $1.23 million for fiscal year 2023. SporticoAccording to the university’s financial database, men’s fencing received $606,000, men’s golf received $879,000 and water polo received $907,000.
Men’s gymnastics is one of a few sports being focused on by the Team USA think tank’s Sport Management Pilot, which also works on track and field and fencing, and officials in both the NCAA and the Olympic movement hope the pilot can provide a framework for facilitating collaboration between collegiate programs and national governing bodies (NGBs) in other sports as well.
“What is the cost of an NCAA championship in general? If we partner with USAG to do youth events, can we cut the cost in half and split it between both organizations? Either way, you’re going to have expenses in different places. So how do we spend money efficiently on operations and staffing? Because the money pool, at least in some of the sports at the collegiate level, is not football.”
The NCAA men’s gymnastics championships are currently in a two-day format. There is no longer a separate day for individual finals. A think tank is considering expanding the men’s tournament to four days — with prelims, a rest day, team finals and individual competitions — which would allow for better promotion of specific athletes’ stories and would also allow more time and space for overlapping USAG events, according to Alyssa Rice, NCAA associate director of championships.
USAG’s youth events draw a different type of audience that loves gymnastics and might also be interested in watching the best college athletes compete in the same week, Rice said. The same goes for sponsors. At one point, the group even discussed the possibility of having national teams compete in co-sponsored events, but Rice said that’s a grand idea that would probably require a lot more coordination.
Also under consideration is minimum sponsorship requirements for the sport. The NCAA currently requires men’s college gymnastics programs to compete in a minimum of nine meets per year. If that were lowered to eight, could more schools consider adding (or retaining) gymnastics?
“We’re in an environment where we have to think outside the box,” Rice said, “and that’s led to some great open dialogue, new ideas and a lot of creativity about how we continue to grow this platform and men’s gymnastics.”
Historically, the level of collaboration between university stakeholders and the NGB has varied by sport. When asked who has done a good job, Wood pointed to USA Basketball, which has three university-specific board seats currently held by NCAA executive Dan Gavitt, Stanford AD Bernard Muir and University of Texas Longhorns executive Chris Plonsky.
There are many additional variables in the men’s gymnastics negotiations, one of which is ESPN. The NCAA recently signed an eight-year, $920 million deal with a subsidiary of Disney that covers nearly every championship except men’s basketball. Men’s gymnastics is the latest addition to that deal.
But the biggest variable is the bidding process for hosting events, which the NCAA typically bids for championships years in advance, meaning significant changes would need to happen by 2027 at the earliest. The NCAA is currently working through the bidding process for the 2027 and 2028 men’s gymnastics championships, Rice said, and there are notes in the bid documents that address possible changes. (USAG also has its own bidding process for major events, but that will be done separately, at least for now.)
In other words, like nearly everything in college sports, a lot is still in flux. The NCAA is in the midst of rapid and significant change, and while many of the concerns about Olympic competition have been around for decades, the next few years could be critical.
“In the past there’s been informal connections between the coaches’ group and the NGB, or the coaches’ group and the NCAA, but now there’s a way to have more serious conversations,” Liz Sucha, the NCAA’s managing director of championships, said in an interview. “We’re all committed to finding ways to get things done. What we get out of this partnership now will be very different in five or six years if it continues.”