Scanning through that table and looking at the school size and the triathlon squad size, I’m absolutely amazed there are so many schools that can’t find more than a couple people to show up and train and compete.
My daughter is on a club college team* for a highly competitive running school and the club still goes and enters meets and she pays out of pocket for it. Surely, there would be some of these types of kids who’d be up to train together and do some races? Why can’t the schools with 0-5 triathletes get anyone interested?
I’m left to wonder… if they had a strong male representation as the base, with the males eagerly recruiting females if the college triathlon situation would look a lot better. Is there any sport that did well with women leading the way? If women’s running or volleyball tried to get their start in college before there were mens programs all around the country I’d assume it would be an uphill battle.
*incidentally, it’s run and coached by the men who are hoping to get enough attention to be a walk-on in the future to the actually running team.
The issue with the entire article is that much of the data is built on incomplete data points. They say all this data is taken from Oct 2024 data…pssssst our season didn’t finish until Nov 2024 (probaly 40% of the schools use nationals as their last sponsorship race). So much of what they are concluding is only half correct. 40 schools met ncaa sport sponsorship through Nov 2024. 1 school has asked for a waiver since their entire school had to shut down from the fall hurricane and their campus basically destroyed. Only 1 of 42 schools didn’t meet sports sponsorship (LaSalle did in 2024, even though they are full time in 2025). So we met the 1st “iniitial” finish line to then present in front of the NCAA. Doesn’t make it an automatic yes, it just simply means we now are going in front of the PTB’s at the NCAA to showcase championship status worthiness. However long that will take is all up in the air, even more so now with all the goings on with the NCAA lawsuit judgements that are a month away from being finalized. The biggest hurdle is during that vetting timeline process, you still must maintain 40 schools being compliant or it’s automatically rejected to the beginning again. That will be the biggest hurdle than the “data” that is being presented.
So I’m not really sure why they don’t use the most updated information to draw a more accurate conclusion?
Where is women’s triathlon? Designated as an NCAA Emerging Sport in 2014, women’s triathlon has yet to achieve the 40 program minimum, based on numbers derived from data submitted by NCAA member schools in October 2024. In 2023-2024, there were 37 triathlon programs with 305 total athletes.
Your amazement would be very much in the minority. There are 3 power 5 schools, 17 D1 programs (1 isn’t even full time run program), the rest are small liberal arts D2-D3 programs. Add in the small recruiting base triathlon as a junior sport has, and you can see why it has roster size issues.
Like most things in life the biggest issue is MONEY.
Your comparison about your daughter’s club running participation isn’t really valid to the discussion point, or it’s not really relevant to the actual issues of roster sizes. Most athletic depts don’t have the funds to have sponsored athletic teams due to the costs of each individual sport. Now one of the new run arounds on college athletic campuses will be non-scholarship “club” sports being supported by the athletic dept. That is probaly going to be the run around to ncaa roster cap limits. We’ve already seen 1 D1 school add 30 club sports to it’s athletic dept (non-scholarship).
Why did you delete your post
Again, why are you using data from Oct of 2024 as your data points, when the season doesn’t end until Nov? You were shitting on USAT for using “bad data”, your doing the same damn thing.
And btw, USAT has no enforcement or jursidtion within ncaa schools making sponsorship or not. They have been the bag man, and Tim has been the go between at times, and is certainly the driver to get it to the finish line. But he/USAT can’t “make up” data. All the data is driven from the schools themselves, and so schools don’t really “make it up” either. It’s fairly straight forward, but again if the data is super vetted and they don’t like something about it, they can say no. But the data is what the data is. NCAA tri made the initial 40 school sponsorship finish line within the 10 year window to move forward to the PTB’s at the NCAA legislation. Again they can vet it and say no, but the biggest issue likely won’t be the data, it will be maintaining 40 schools being compliant throughout the vetting process. Could take 1 year, could take what 2.5 years if the wrestling achieved it in winter of '22 but took 3 years to get accepted as championship status.
I deleted my post because the article is dated March 5th, but then uses “projections” for it’s data summary/conclusion. The article states it projects only 38 schools made sport sponsorship, but the most accurate up to date (including the full triathlon season) is that 40 schools have made it and 1 school is applying for a waiver to also be included (Warren Wilson, it had 2 of 4 races achieved when the hurricane destroyed it’s campus, and had 8 athletes on roster).
The most “accurate” current assessment is that NCAA TRI has hit the initial 40 school sponsorship within the 10 year window to then present to the NCAA legislation to be moved to championship status. FULL STOP
We don’t need to “project” what is may or may not happen with an article that is written nearly 4 months after the complete data was achieved but uses inaccurate data to create a narrative (that is incomplete).
Again it’s going to likely be a year + process (likely) and so in the meantime, ncaa tri still needs to keep 40 schools compliant through the entire process.
NCAA rules
About NCAA Triathlon#
Teams
Each member institution is allowed a maximum of 6.5 (Division I) or 5.0 (Division II) equivalency scholarships. There is no lower scholarship equivalency limit.
Teams must have at least three athletes. There is no upper roster limit.
Teams must participate in at least four and at most six intercollegiate contests (except dates of competition excluded under Bylaws).
So, from the data I am seeing, and if I am wrong, correct me.
2 schools show on their roster 2 girls, so that means 2 cannot be counted.
Counting possible future teams does not count.
The picture is what USAT sent to NCAA, yep, oct 2024, which is the process that they had 37 official schools. Next October they will give a new update on not projected, but actual. Sure does not look like it will be 40, but.
Yep, wresting, in only a few years went way over 40 schools, number of kids, and continues to grow. Still took what 3 years after getting to the next step to be final. USAT at 10 years is still, well, …
I am just giving data, and if I were on the NCAA, why would I hand out like 1.5 million to a sport that in ten years has so few folks, compared to what is happening in flag football or US Stunt? Just follow the money. Yep, I would love to have seen Tri go nuts, but Tim stated in 2022 it was already there. Well.
I still do not believe triathlon is a sport for younger folks! Enjoy life, get married, have a family, spend time with them. Tri is a me me sport so wait until your kids are grown. This is what I did. Oh well.
2 schools on my have 2 kids, which mean by the rules they do not count.
One is 2025 at best, does not count.
So I have no idea how you come up with 40, let alone USAT said 42!!
I think your confusing roster size and competition roster minimums. There is no such thing as “minimum roster sizes” in ncaa college athletics. There is soon to be a maximum roster size limitation for D1 student athletics (triathlon will be 14 at the D1 level max roster limit). There is such thing as each sports minimum competition roster minimums, but that is not the same thing as roster size. Again there are no “minimum” roster size requirements, the only requirements is within competitions/events for said school to count as a countable ncaa event. The NCAA only cares about the competitions, not necessarily the number of athletes on your roster (until now when they want to cap it at D1 level). So looking at only roster size numbers isn’t what the NCAA looks at when it judges countable events. It looks at it’s own standards to determine, ok yes you achieved an ncaa countable event. Again triathlon isn’t making the rules, cross country doesn’t make the rules, this is all the NCAA’s own rules.
In triathlon you need 3 student athletes to race against another ncaa team with 3 as well. If 1 team races with 7 vs a team with 2, neither school can count that as a countable event.
So what happens is for the teams that have only 2 on the active roster, they recruit a runner or swimmer or soccer player from their athletic team to be an “triathlete for the day” to put on a uniform and go race against another ncaa team with 3 min athletes and then both teams can achieve an countable event. That is 100% legal and that’s 100% allowed to then count said event as an ncaa countable competition. Trust me when I say this. NCAA insittutions will become very creative to make sure they are ncaa compliant, that’s happened tons of times across all ncaa sports spectrum.
So when I say the data is what the data is, that’s the truth. NCAA schools can’t afford to make up data, that’s now how that works. Individual sports can get creative with how they obtain sport sponsorship requirements, but again if they are eligible student athlete, it’s going to be very hard for the NCAA to then “deny” that (have we been paying attention to how many times the ncaa caves anytime a lawsuit is brought up).
USAT has said there is 42 current NCAA programs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them say there are 42 ncaa sport sponsorship achieving teams. Again this past Nov was the 1st and only time the sport made 40 schools achieve the min sport sponsorship standard (every institution must race 4 races min with 3 finishers against other ncaa schools), which then allows you to move to the next phase in the NCAA championship status process. That’s it.
So this article is incomplete, and for you to use this as some gotcha moment against usat, while at the same time trying to piss on USAT for “bad data”, you look pretty foolish.
Interesting. I guess they can play these games, I just do not believe the NCAA is dumb and would give anyone 1.5 million when clearly, very little interest. And yep, I hear all the games being played to meed the minimums, again, NCAA is not dumb.
USAT put out on their facebook feed the below, which clearly says 42, so I am not making this up.
But see this is the thing. Triathlon or cross country or basketball they aren’t making the rules. Women’s wrestling isn’t making the rules. Every sport is simply following the guidelines that the NCAA sets out. So when I say the data is what the data is, no one is making it up. It’s all within their own rules and regulations of either a sport met sponsorship guidelines or it didn’t.
So when you say there can’t be 40 schools cus 2 programs don’t have 3 student athletes, that’s the incorrect way to assess it. Again roster sizes are irrelevant to the ncaa until this new ruling in april. It’s competition sizes that matter to the ncaa. Now roster sizes are important data point for your sport to show growth, which ncaa triathlon has been showing, even if some schools have struggled. But the #1 factor for ncaa is did the sport obtain ncaa sport sponsorship requirements or not. That is the #1 factor for the NCAA in vetting sports.
And when you say the NCAA isn’t dumb, you’d be right. They will be very hard to “deny” a women’s sport if it’s followed it’s own guidelines and rules to then make championship status. Most especially after all the times they have been basically sued almost out of existence.
So the data isn’t going to be the issue for ncaa triathlon. It’s maintaining 40 schools being ncaa sponsorship status during the vetting process, that will be the biggest hurdle to overcome.
Yes I already said, there are 42 NCAA schools. You don’t have to achieve ncaa sponsorship in order to be an ncaa school (if you fail to meet ncaa sponsorship status you are financially fined based on the overall % of your athletic dept being ncaa compliant, so it’s not always a financial penalty if the rest of your sports are compliant). Your athletic dept just simply has to support it, which is what 42 universities are currently doing, with now 40 of them having reached ncaa sponsorship status.
So you keep wanting to seemingly inject conjecture or opinion on it, when in reality that’s the opposite of how these things have to work out within the ncaa realm.
So again the most accurate statement:
NCAA TRI has met 40 school ncaa sponsorship minimum to now move forward with meeting with NCAA to move to championship status. The vetting process can be “quick” or it can take years, there is no specific time line for that process; best guess is that fall of 2026 would be the earliest ncaa championship status year.
That’s where we are at. Nothing more, nothing less.
And remember the NCAA is made up of all the member colleges across the U.S. So when the NCAA sets standards, and it’s own members them meet those standards, it’s going to be very hard to then deny it’s OWN MEMBERSHIP that achievement.
So it’s not an automatic acceptance, but I don’t know that many sports have made the 40 sport min and then been denied by the NCAA to full championship status.
So when you guys seemingly want to keep injecting your own conjecture on how you see them deciding it, I’m kinda over here laughing, that’s not really how they do that. Again it’s not an automatic acceptance, they will certaintly vet the data and that can always come back against you. But if your saying is that likely the case, my experience working within NCAA for years, I would say if your sport meets sport sponsosrhip status, maintains sports sponsorship throughout the entire vetting process, you are going to become a full championship status sport.
But again the biggest hurdle will be to maintain 40 schools staying compliant. That will be the issue, not whether the NCAA likes the data that is presented before them or not.
The NCAA could deny it based on the new revenue sharing details and close off any new ncaa sports that aren’t already championship status. But being a women’s sport, I don’t think that’ll be the decision. NCAA football needs to figure out conference expansion and finally get all that decided and then I think conferences can get back to more normalcy for all it’s other sports by going to old schoool “regional” conferences. Just a matter of when that will happen. Hurry up ESPN/Fox Sports and get it figured out.
One last note. Within ncaa triathlon, there will currently be an all divisions national championship singular race. I believe each division has to have 35 teams within each division to have their own separated D1 / D2 / D3 championship for any sport. Women’s wrestling had 76 teams competing, so if they had any division with more than 35 that would mean automatically 2 championships. NCAA Tri likely won’t ever hit that number in any of the divisions so it’s only going to have 1 singular national championships consisting of D1+D2+D3 all racing together. All ncaa championship event costs are covered by the ncaa (team travel + race site costs).
Technically right now we have separate D1/D2/D3 “champions” named at the women’s national championship. At the NCAA National Championships, if it’s a 1 race championship, there would be no distinguishing D1 vs D2 vs D3. There would be 1 singular champion. Which obviously can hurt the smaller D2/D3 programs, but most sports then create an unofficial “coach’s assocation national championship”…Swimming does that for basically all it’s mid-majors as it’s really really hard to qualify for D1 swim cut if your not a Power 5 team swimmer.
So what, one person.
10 years, only 305 mainly white kids. The days when others pay their way for their fun is quickly coming to an end.
And if you look at the data on then number 1 factor on what is important for a college, this is graduation rates. Looks at the 38 valid schools. The vast vast majority graduations rates are a joke! I would never send my kids to these schools even if it were free!
Basically all these schools have are a club triathlon group. Why is Cal Berkley, with a huge team, not part of the 38? These see right through the joke.
So bottom line is the data, been 10 years, 305 kids, mostly poor colleges in ratings, never going to happen. Now, if it happens, I will eat crow, but never going to happen.
Dave,
You can feel however you want on the subject, if you think it’s a waste of money/time/resources, more power to you. But it’s clear your very ignorant of the process and the overall understanding of ncaa collegiate athletics. And again it can fail, but when you come on here and talk about facts, just make sure you know what your talking about with accurate takes.
NCAA athletics is actually moving now to a point where “paying” for athletes is now more accessible than ever. Now obviously small non-revenue sport athletes aren’t going to receive money to participate like the star QB or PG but colllegiate athletics is going through huge changes starting this summer.
These teams aren’t club level, and that’s the major point of difference. The reason why Cal Berkley isn’t in NCAA tri is because the athletic dept at Cal Berkley doesn’t want to invest in the required investment for an ncaa team (rough estimate at D1 level, it’s going to be roughly $80k “investment” min level per year costs, and being that they are a Power 5 school their "investment’ in sports is almost easily 6 figures at min for them to feel good about supporting the program and student athlete experience). Club programs are basically 99.99% student funded and student driven. NCAA sport programs are 99.99% funded by the athletic dept (boosters/grants/fundraising can be part of that). NCAA programs fall under so many specific guidelines and rules, that many athletic depts use sports as a title ix compliance, and club sports don’t really fall under that jurisdiction with “title ix” compliance. The trend now is that most universities are adding triathlon as a enrollment growth as most athletic depts these days are pretty good with being title ix compliant. I was at a school that lost an title ix complaint and had to end up paying +$3.5mi in changes to be good. It was wild how far title ix compliance goes to, we are talking about the size of coach’s offices, how many lockers are in a locker room, etc.
So it’s not about eating crow, it’s about being accurate. Again you can hope/want/think it’s going to fall, and it still may. But your narrative is very much ignorant of the reality of where ncaa triathlon actually is.
So by all means, hate on it, want it to fail, doesn’t matter to me. I’ve never once said it’s a done deal. NCAA tri is going to always struggle even if it makes championship status of getting a large number of programs. There are several power schools that are “waiting” til it hits championship status and no time before that, but again it’s gotta be accepted 1st. The vetting process can be decided to reject it. But you keep using incorrect data, almost purposely to support your narrative?
So again we are where we are. Nothing more, nothing less. Probaly nothing else to report for likely 12-18 months at the earliest. Again with all the changes the NCAA could automatically reject it, it could sit on it for a long term review, or it could fast track it. No one knows.
Accurate, most of the colleges are so bad I would never send a family member to these. You proud of this? You would send family members to colleges that have a terrible graduation rate.
Tri will end up being club, as most are now
In the early years the best junior triathletes (Knibb and Gorman), decided to skip ncaa tri for ncaa single sport.
At this point in the game, that’s no longer happening. It’s occassionally happening that the 13th best junior goes to run in college vs triathlon, but the best talent is now staying in the sport.
So based on that information, I don’t know that the actual happenings of triathletes, would agree with your assessment. Are there schools that struggle and will always struggle, of course. My guess is that less of those schools are coming on board however, and so the schools that are now picking it up, I think actually have a likely higher success rate.
I’ll also add, graduation rates within NCAA parameters is a little bit of a “wonky” number because team members can quit, athletes can transfer and suddenly that “graduation” number looks bad. In fact it’s why NCAA doesn’t really use graduation rates only for data analysis. They use a process called APR (Academic Progress Report) that factors in eligibility, graduation, etc. It’s a more accurate assessment based on college athletics in today’s climate.
When NCAA wanted 40 schools to have a program, I assume they’d like the programs to grow and flourish. No matter how you slice it, the USAT NCAA effort has either failed or limped its way to the finish line and is still in the process of crawling across.
The fact that Stunt (cheer) is doing so well is simply a testament to women doing things women want to do. There’s a market that exists for women who did cheer to go into stunt. There’s a well established vehicle for girls wrestling with all the high school wrestling programs. For triathlon, what do we have (in the USA)? A strong culture of men gobbling up long course, so naturally USAT decides to go all in with a college program for girls to race short course draft legal. A product with no market.
The strategic blunder behind that is astounding. The reason why it will NEVER be successful the way it’s currently formulated is there is no one feeding into the pyramid from the bottom. We’ve got runners in high school, throwers in high school, cheer leaders in high school, and wrestlers in high school and so on.
No matter how successful any particular program is going to be in triathlon at the college level, every few years they have to start all over begging people to show up and race.
Meanwhile, there’s a reasonably healthy market of long distance triathletes who have kids and their kids would likely be open to it if there was an option for both boys and girls to do it. I mean, at minimum, USAT should have tried for introducing triathlon as a mixed gendered relay sport at the college level. That at least would have some cool potential if you want to focus on the female aspect.
As it is, even if the NCAA approves this niche version of our sport for a niche subset of athletes, it’s always going to teeter on the edge of insolvency because there’s nothing feeding it at the high school level.
All these thoughts are great. Bottom line, is the sport making any money?
The days of football or basketball paying for kids to have fun doing a sport in college are over! Club is where it is at! Again, one has to pay their own way, like I am doing now with my grandkids in club sports!!! The free rides are done.
At the end of the day, what has USAT done that has grown the sport? All these nice feeling stuff is great, but the numbers are way down. USAT is losing millions!! The group of folks at USAT today are just stuck in the same old way from the past. Do you remember sears? Or radio shack? DEI is dead. Sorry for being so honest.
I overall see now new young RD’s getting in to the business. Most are old and ready to retire! No RD’s, no races.
College entries are going down. College is now starting to be seen as an over priced liberal mess that folks do not need. Blue colar jobs is where it is at now. AI cannot replace most of these.
I wish I had 3.5 million to spend on something that has zero return to show. Show me how any of this NCAA money and effort has increase any profit for USAT. Increased Age group athletes.
If I were teaching a MBA business class and someone came with a business plan for the NCAA, I would have given them an F. Business, show me how this makes any more for our sport.
Totally agree with you. Look at the 38 colleges on the list. How many of these would you send a family member to? Most I sure never would.
Oh well, facts are facts. 10 years, 305 white kids, and nothing to show. Wrestling got full status in a few years. Stunt in 2 years is growing like crazy. Flag football checks ALL the boxes. NCAA is going to be gone is a few years anyways. The days of getting free money for your fun is over.