Swimmers Remain Unpaid While ISL Backs New College Swimming League (CSL)

The College Swimming League (CSL) is being sold as the future of college swimming — athlete pay, better production, simpler scoring, and freedom from NCAA constraints — and in his recent podcast appearance, co-founder Kyle Sockwell lays out a compelling vision for why the sport needs to change, but when the conversation turns to money, accountability, and athlete protections, the answers become vague, especially as the CSL is acknowledged to be financially backed “in the background” by the International Swimming League, a league that still faces unresolved questions over unpaid swimmers, leaving one unavoidable issue at the center of this entire project: how are athletes actually getting paid, who is responsible if funding falls short, and why does swimming keep asking swimmers to trust ambitious new ventures before those questions are clearly answered.

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