Sweeping changes are coming to college athletics very soon.
Power conference commissioners finalized new roster size limits that will pave the way for athletic departments to distribute millions of dollars in new scholarships to athletes, primarily in football, baseball and softball, according to a report by Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports.
Dellenger further reported that with the new revenue-sharing model coming in the 2025-26 season, which will allow athletic departments to share up to $20 million with its players, schools will be able to offer scholarships to the entirety of their rosters.
In the case of football, the scholarship limit will jump from 85 to 105, but schools will not be required to hit that 105 limit. And that 105 scholarship limit may not kick in until the start of the season, which would allow for camp flexibility.
Additionally, all the sports with scholarship increases — football, basketball, baseball, softball and volleyball — will be allowed to offer partial scholarships, which wasn’t allowed in football or basketball previously.
The official details are expected to be included in the landmark settlement of three anti-trust cases, including the House v. NCAA lawsuit. The agreement is expected to be Friday, which will include additional details on the distribution of the $2.7 billion in back-pay to former players and the official terms of the new revenue-sharing model.
As it stands, the expected jumps are football (85 to 105), basketball (13 to 15), baseball (12 to 34), softball (12 to 25) and volleyball (12 to 18).
The NCAA, in conjunction with the four Power commissioners (plus the Pac-12), released a statement last month.
“The five autonomy conferences and the NCAA agreeing to settlement terms is an important step in the continuing reform of college sports that will provide benefits to student-athletes and provide clarity in college athletics across all divisions for years to come. This settlement is also a road map for college sports leaders and Congress to ensure this uniquely American institution can continue to provide unmatched opportunity for millions of students. All of Division I made today’s progress possible, and we all have work to do to implement the terms of the agreement as the legal process continues. We look forward to working with our various student-athlete leadership groups to write the next chapter of college sports.”
Pitt, like every program in college athletics, has had to adjust to NIL and its consequences. The university has bought into Alliance 412, the preferred NIL collective, and there’s even a team-wide NIL deal for the football team — with the major football and basketball stars inking individual deals.
Pat Narduzzi even expressed his support of revenue-sharing in college athletics.
“I think it’s a great thing that the universities are now going to start to take this over,” Narduzzi said. “Obviously there’s a lot of things to still work out, we’re not going to get into the meetings on that today, but that’s the settlement. Players in the past, 10 years ago, are going to get paid back, I guess, and we’re gonna pay our current players. We’re gonna let everything work through — I’m gonna worry about winning football games and we’ll worry about (revenue sharing) in ’25.”
The full details of the groundbreaking changes coming to college athletics are expected on Friday, and the ripple effect of those changes will be felt for a long time.
