College students across the Commonwealth are moving back into dorms and classrooms this month for the upcoming academic year. Things are heating up on the sports fields as well, where the University of Virginia boasts an impressive record heading into the 2026 campaign. Already this year the nationally ranked women’s soccer team is off to a 3-0 start, and the football team kicks off its season on Saturday.
This season, universities are dealing with a changing sports landscape. Many of those changes are being driven from Washington. The House of Representatives is considering H.R. 9137, a bill that would establish “requirements for name, image, or likeness (NIL) agreements for college student athletes and provides a limited antitrust exemption for schools and conferences to pool and sell certain college sports media rights.”
The Trump administration has also staked out a position on college sports. It issued Executive Order 14400, which took effect this month. “College football is the primary revenue generator for university athletic departments, including revenue to support women’s and Olympic sports, and is used by many universities to attract students, donations, and goodwill,” it notes.
UVA’s athletic director agrees. “Greater success and greater visibility create greater opportunity. Football sits at the center of that opportunity,” Carla Williams wrote in an email.“College athletics is in a new era where winning, national visibility and financial strength are more closely intertwined than ever before. Success drives visibility. Visibility generates resources. Those resources fuel future success.”
UVA athletic teams have had success, winning more than two-thirds of their contests last year. The school went 309-137-10 across all sports to once again win the Virginia Sports Information Directors University Division All-Sport Survey. Liberty University, which had won the survey the year before, came second by winning 62.7% of its contests.
The new executive prder doesn’t directly change NCAA policies or create new laws for universities. However, the order directs federal agencies to keep a closer eye on NIL deals and revenue sharing. It remains to be seen what such changes might do to future recruiting nationwide, but the Cavs will be looking to find ways to use the new policies to build on their already successful profile.
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Last season, two squads captured national titles: The men’s tennis team captured its seventh overall championship this spring, while the women’s swimming & diving team won its sixth straight national title.
Virginia’s swim program is so deep that its club team—composed of non-scholarship swimmers—is one of the largest contracted independent organizations on campus. It consists of hundreds of members. The women’s club swim team won four consecutive College Club Swimming National Championships from 2022 through 2025. Scholarship swimmers, including Olympic gold medalist Gretchen Walsh, have been spotted in the aquatic center rooting on their colleagues on the club team. Walsh graduated in 2025 but still works out on grounds.
Virginia’s NCAA Graduation Success Rate was 96% last year, and 11 sports boasted perfect graduation scores. The average athlete’s GPA last fall was 3.37. Those numbers should encourage future athletes to look at UVA, as will the opportunity to get paid.
The key to athletic success has been UVA’s fundraising.
The Trump administration writes that the current “chaotic state of affairs has undermined competition, reduced opportunities for student-athletes, and jeopardized support for the current range of college athletics, particularly women’s and Olympic sports. Fair competition cannot occur without a consistent set of rules concerning pay-for-play or player eligibility that cannot be endlessly relitigated in court.”
For its part, Virginia has many financially successful alumni who are ready to endow scholarships and programs. For example, UVA has raised funding for specific sports: not just high-profile sports such as football, basketball, and baseball, but non-revenue sports as well. That includes $10 million for volleyball and women’s soccer, $1 million for field hockey, and $1 million to help support men’s and women’s golf. The Virginia Athletics Foundation also supports sports across the campus, and a recently opened, $75-million facility promotes Olympic sports teams.
This summer, the university’s Board of Visitors took a deep dive into the athletic program and reported that the total operating budget for the athletic department was $170 million. That investment paid off as UVA finished fifth in the nation in the Learfield Directors’ Cup standings. That averages out to a cost of $129,702 per Director’s Cup point, far less than the ACC average of $242,500. More success this year might even bring the costs down instead of driving them up.
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