After we reported yesterday how the SEC and Big Ten were discussing new roster limits, the NCAA is now reportedly set to eliminate scholarship limits across all sports beginning in the 2025-26 season.
According to Yahoo Sports, the new revenue-sharing model will see by-sport scholarship restrictions eliminated, allowing schools to offer scholarships to the entirety of their rosters.
New roster limits won’t be final until the approval of settlement terms in the House case, but in swimming & diving, the limits are expected to be 23 men and 35 women, at least in the SEC and Big Ten.
The elimination of scholarship limits comes as the House case settlement opens the door for schools to pay student-athletes NIL money, and therefore, it wouldn’t make sense for there to be only a certain number of scholarships available when the other athletes could still earn money through NIL.
During a meeting on Tuesday involving the power conference commissioners, new roster limits for football were reportedly set at 105, meaning there will be a 20-scholarship increase compared to the current limit which is 85.
Baseball, which has a scholarship restriction of 11.7, is expected to have a roster cap of 34, while softball and volleyball are expected to have roster limits of 25 and 18, respectively, a stark increase from their current scholarship limit of 12.
Another change is that all sports will now be considered “equivalency sports,” meaning partial scholarships can be distributed to all athletes. Previously, sports such as football and basketball were considered “head-count sports” requiring players on scholarship to receive a full grant.
Schools won’t be required to use scholarships for all of their roster spots, leaving room for walk-on opportunities.
Yahoo Sports reports that power conference programs are expecting to spend an additional $3 million to $7 million in additional scholarships annually.
Settlement terms in the House v. NCAA case are expected to be filed Friday with details on the distribution of the $2.77 billion in back pay to former athletes along with specifics of the new revenue-sharing model.
On the bright side… since they’re killing off a ton /most of the swimming programs, we can assume those that survive will almost certainly have access to a 50 meter pool, so we can all re-debate NCAA swimming switching from SCY to LCM.
now’s my chance
From a supporting the education and dreams of more athletes standpoint, this is awesome. Although a lot of readers will think of this in terms of the competitive landscape only (which is valid), on a human level this means that more kids will have the opportunity to go to school across every sport and not have to worry about the potential to go into extreme debt to pursue athletic and academic opportunities.
That said, as someone who just graduated from a power 5 team on a relatively small scholarship… it stings a little bit 🙂
Not sure you really fully understand what’s going on. The end game of all this stuff is that there will be far fewer opportunities for swimming and diving in college.
That’s fair and I don’t disagree. I guess I was more thinking in terms of what’s left after the fact. Between roster limits and athletes as “employees” I unfortunately agree that some programs are likely to be cut. However, I think we can all agree that the programs that survive having the opportunity (not requirement) to give their athletes more scholarship money than they could before does directly benefit those athletes and their families- not just in swimming (even though that’s what we all care about), but every sport that couldn’t previously.
This is a scary time for Olympic and smaller college sports, lots of uncertainty. But, for the athletes and programs that do make it to the other… Read more »
Yeah gonna need more info about how Title IX goes into this cuz this just ain’t adding up
How does this work with Title IX. I expect it might be good for women’s sports. More scholarships to offset the extra major sports scholarships.
And the rich will get ever so much richer. Now rich schools can offer scholarships just to keep talent from going to poorer schools.
Well, didn’t have this on my Bingo card.
NCAA scholarship limits are not necessary if the conferences/schools all collude to limit roster spots. this announcement works in concert with yesterday’s article forecasting the loss of thousands of current roster spots.
My guess is that schools with lots of money will allow more scholarships for swimming and smaller schools with less money will decrease scholarships to focus on survival.
My guess is this isn’t good for swimming as this gives schools more power to put more money on revenue generating sports.
Truth. None of this is ever going to be good for swimming.
I have heard a different take. The Power 4/5 schools will need to (want to) focus so much of their revenues for their football programs, that this could result in serious loses for the non-revenue sports at these programs. However, if you just have a basketball program to support, although your revenues are nowhere close to the Power 4/5, you may be able to invest a little more on the non-revenue side (or at least not be as restricted as some of these big football schools may end up being). So, IF true, time will tell, you may see some subtle shifts of some of the better swimmers going to smaller than typical schools… Will be interesting to track over… Read more »