Reports: NCAA Considering Lifting Scholarship Limit As Part Of Lawsuit Settlement Talks

Image credit: COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA - MARCH 23: Tyler Causey #12 of the South Carolina Gamecocks celebrates his home run with his team against the Vanderbilt Commodores in the sixth inning during the second game of their double header at Founders Park on March 23, 2024 in Columbia, South Carolina. (Photo by Eakin Howard/Getty Images)

Well beyond the diamond or any athletic field, a potential sea change in college sports is building. According to several reports this week, the NCAA and some major conferences are deep in negotiations to settle the landmark House v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit and a few related cases.

The House lawsuit, brought by Arizona State swimmer Grant House, seeks damages dating to 2016 for athletes who were not able to earn compensation from their Name, Image and Likeness and also seeks revenue from the NCAA and conferences’ media rights deals. The settlement, according to media reports, would total more than $2.7 billion and be paid out to thousands of athletes.

The money is massive. What’s even more impactful moving forward would be a significant change in how the NCAA operates. The settlement reportedly would come with a commitment from the NCAA and conferences to in the future share revenue from media rights deals with the athletes.

Further, according to a report from Yahoo Sports, the settlement would include a plan to implement roster limits for all sports and the expansion of scholarships to those limits. So, in baseball, there would no longer be a limit of 11.7 scholarships per team. Every team would have as many scholarships as there are roster positions. Today, baseball teams are allowed to have 32 players receiving scholarship money and 40 players total on the roster. A roster size of 32 feels more likely in this potential new reality, but it would undoubtably be subject to major debate before it was set. The new rules would not go into effect for more than a year, according to the report.

For baseball, the change in scholarship limits would be massively impactful. Since 1991, when the NCAA cut scholarships for every sport across the board, baseball has operated with 11.7 scholarships. Increasing the number of scholarships has long been the sport’s white whale. Now, it appears within reach.

While the House lawsuit is about revenue sharing, the writing has been on the wall for scholarship limits since the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in Alston v. NCAA. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion in that case, in which he attacked the existing NCAA model. Among the flaws he outlined was the equivalency sport model—the NCAA’s term for partial-scholarship sports—and he strongly suggested it would not stand up to a challenge in court, using similar arguments that led to the Alston decision. Kavanaugh’s opinion was not the court’s official decision but given that the justices rendered a unanimous decision in the Alston case, defending the equivalency sports model seemed like a losing proposition for the NCAA.

The settlement of the House lawsuit still has several hurdles to clear, and nothing is close to being finalized. But if the case does get settled, which is the expectation, and that settlement includes the plan to end equivalency sports, college baseball will be forever changed.

Schools would not be required to offer whatever the new scholarship limit would be, just as some schools today do not offer the full 11.7 scholarships for baseball. But the major powers would have potentially nearly tripled the number of scholarships they could offer. That would likely lead to a further concentration of power in the sport and make competition in those leagues even fiercer. That would probably lead to a push to separate baseball into subdivisions, like football. The downstream effects would be massive.

But it would also mean that hundreds, if not thousands, of college baseball players would receive full scholarships instead of graduating with a mountain of student loan debt. It would also be significant for the growth of the sport. Today, baseball is at a disadvantage with multi-sport athletes, who must choose between a full scholarship in basketball or football or a partial scholarship in baseball.

Nothing is finalized yet, but college baseball could be in for the biggest upheaval it has ever experienced.