The NCAA is in active talks with USA Gymnastics about how to revamp its collegiate men’s gymnastics championships, conversations that could lead to coordinated major events, shared personnel, or cross-selling partnerships.
The talks are part of a pilot program run through Team USA aimed at preserving the critical pipeline between college sports and the Olympics. Stakeholders on both sides are seeking more visibility and more financial sustainability for men’s gymnastics, a model that could eventually be replicated with other sports threatened by changes underway across college athletics.
“I want [national governing body] leaders to have a seat at the table to help develop sports at the college level,” Rocky Harris, Team USA’s chief of sport and athlete services, said in an interview. “That’s important because they know the sports better than anyone else. They know what works, what doesn’t, how you can take advantage, how you can commercialize it.”
Among the many men’s gymnastics possibilities discussed is hosting coordinated events—maybe a USA Gymnastics (USAG) youth regional that coincides with the NCAA championships in the same city or venue, according to those who have attended the meetings. They’ve talked about staffing synergies that could reduce costs, sponsorship packages that could increase revenue, and also more mundane—but equally important—topics like legislative changes that could make the sport more appealing to schools and media partners.
The talks have occurred as part of Team USA’s College Sports Sustainability Think Tank, an initiative launched in 2020 to help bridge the gap between NCAA sports and the Olympics. America’s vast collegiate athletics infrastructure is one of the main drivers of its tremendous Olympic success, but that model has been stressed in recent years, first by cuts associated with the COVID pandemic, and now over concerns that increased professionalization of football and basketball could divert resources from other less revenue-producing sports.
That’s especially tenuous in men’s Olympic sports, due to Title IX considerations, and doubly true for men’s gymnastics. There are just 15 collegiate men’s gymnastics programs—among the fewest of any NCAA-sponsored sport—and Team USA, which chose its Olympic roster at trials this past weekend, relies heavily on those teams as a feeder system. All five gymnasts, and both traveling Olympics replacements, are either active college athletes or former NCAA stars.
It’s also an expensive sport for colleges. The eight public FBS schools that offer men’s gymnastics reported an average budget of $1.23 million in fiscal 2023, according to Sportico’s college finance database. That’s compared to $606,000 for men’s fencing, $879,000 for men’s golf, and $907,000 for water polo.
Men’s gymnastics is one of a handful of sports that the Team USA think tank’s sports management pilot has focused on—it’s also worked with track & field and fencing. The hope, among people in both the NCAA and Olympic movements, is that it can be a framework for other sports to foster more collaboration between college programs and national governing bodies (NGBs).
“What do expenses typically look like for an NCAA championship?” Adam Wood, Team USA’s director of collegiate performance pathways, said in an interview. “If we partner with USAG and have a youth event there, can we slice that in half and have both organizations share it? They were going to have those expenses anyway, in different sites. So it’s more about how to efficiently spend money for operations and staff, because the pool of money, at least for some of these sports at the collegiate level, it’s not football.”
The NCAA men’s gymnastics championship is currently a two-day format. There is no longer a separate day for individual finals. The think tank is considering expanding that men’s event to four days—qualifiers, rest day, team final and individual disciplines—which could better promote the stories of specific athletes and create more time and space for an overlapping USAG event, according to Alyssa Rice, the NCAA’s assistant director of championships.
USAG’s youth events bring a different sort of gymnastics-loving crowd that might also be interested in watching some of the best college athletes during the same week, Rice said. Same goes for sponsors. At one point, the group also discussed the possibility of having national teams compete in a co-located event, she said, a moonshot idea that would likely require a lot more coordination.
Also under consideration: sport sponsorship minimums. The NCAA currently requires that men’s college gymnastics programs play a minimum of nine matches per year. If that was lowered to eight, would it potentially entice more schools to consider adding (or keeping) the sport?
“We’re in an environment of needing to think outside the box of what has traditionally been done,” Rice said. “That has created great open dialogue, new ideas and a lot of creativity around how we can continue to grow this platform and the sport of men’s gymnastics.”
Historically the level of collaboration between college stakeholders and NGBs has varied by sport. Asked who does it well, Wood referenced USA Basketball, which has three college-specific board seats. They’re currently occupied by NCAA executive Dan Gavitt, Stanford AD Bernard Muir and Texas Longhorns exec Chris Plonsky.
There are many extra variables in the men’s gymnastics talks, one of which is ESPN. The NCAA recently signed an eight-year, $920 million deal with the Disney unit that covers almost all of its championships outside men’s basketball. Men’s gymnastics was a new addition to that deal.
The biggest variable, however, is the bid process for host locations. The NCAA typically bids out championships years in advance, meaning major changes would need to be made for 2027 at the earliest. The NCAA is currently in the bid process for 2027 and 2028 men’s gymnastics championships, Rice said, and there is a note in the bid documents that references the potential changes. (USAG also has its own bid process for major events, which will stay separate, at least for now).
In other words, a lot remains in flux, much like almost everything else in college sports. The NCAA is in the midst of rapid—and significant—change, and while many of the concerns over Olympic sports have been prevalent for decades, the next few years could be the critical period.
“Where there have previously been informal connections between coaches groups and an NGB, or coaches groups and the NCAA, we’ve now got a more committed way to talk to each other,” Liz Suscha, the NCAA’s managing director of championships, said in an interview. “We’re all committed to figuring out how to get things done. What we’re getting out of these partnerships today will look completely different in five or six years if we keep this up.”
