Three-quarters of the nearly 600 American athletes lining up for action at the Paris Olympics honed their skills playing college sports in the United States.
It’s an eye-opening figure that places the future of the Olympics themselves into the equation as the NCAA and its biggest schools set priorities when they start paying college athletes who for decades played only for scholarships.
“I think everybody’s going to have to make choices,” NCAA President Charlie Baker told The Associated Press in an interview a few hours before the opening ceremony. He planned to go to field hockey, volleyball, swimming and gymnastics while in Paris.
Baker’s mere presence in Paris on the same day litigators filed details of a multibillion-dollar settlement that will alter the course of the NCAA speaks volumes about the important but seldom-discussed link between the biggest moneymakers in college — football and basketball — and the sports they underwrite. Many of those sports are being played over 17 days at the Summer Olympics.
According to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, 21 U.S. teams competing in Paris have at least 80% college participation on their rosters. The 5-on-5 and 3×3 women’s basketball squads are two of 15 teams that are completely formed with NCAA talent. Some of America’s best-known Olympians — Sha’Carri Richardson, Steph Curry and Suni Lee, to name a few — competed in college.
The tendrils go beyond the U.S. team. More than 800 athletes with NCAA ties will compete for other countries in Paris. In all, more than 1 in 10 of the 10,500 athletes at these Games played college sports in the U.S.
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