-
The New Economics of College Track & Field
For more than a century, college sports operated under a deceptively simple dogma: student-athletes played for pride, tuition, room, and board, while television networks and universities generated billions in commercial profit. In late September 2026, the United States Senate decisively put the final nail in that amateurism coffin, passing the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act (S. 4668) with a 77–22 vote. Combined with the landmark court settlement known across campuses as House v. NCAA, the collegiate landscape has completed a total metamorphosis. Colleges are no longer merely academic institutions that sponsor sporting clubs; they are now direct revenue-sharing employers and contract facilitators. While headline writers focus exclusively on whether a…
-
Pro Or College – The Elite Athletes Choice
As we take a look at the growing number of elite track and field athletes that are now being developed in high schools, we need to also look at the choice that these elite talents face when they graduate. The traditional choices for elite high schoolers has changed dramatically in just the past few years. For athletes like Allyson Felix in the early 2000’s to Noah Lyles and Michael Norman in the late 2010’s, the choice was pretty simple. Sign a professional contract with a shoe company for what they were willing to pay, or run under the constraints of the NCAA. Each with its positives and negatives. Go Pro:…