New college sports roster limits revealed as House settlement expands scholarship numbers

More than 750 additional scholarship spots are coming to college sports.

As part of the House settlement agreement made public on Friday, college leaders are expanding scholarships to full rosters of each sport, eliminating scholarship restrictions and replacing them with roster size limits. The new scholarship and roster structure — an attempt to prevent future lawsuits — takes effect starting in the 2025-26 academic year and coincides with the settlement’s new model that permits schools to share revenue directly with athletes.

Commissioners finalized new roster limits earlier this week, and they were all revealed with Friday’s court filing.

In the new model, schools are permitted to offer a scholarship to each player on a sport’s roster up to the new roster limits. With the move, roughly 790 new scholarships are available across the 40-plus NCAA sports listed in the settlement. According to a Yahoo Sports calculation, there were about 500 scholarships available in all sports in the current NCAA model. Under the new roster limits, that number is now at more than 1,200.

For instance, the sport of football, with a current scholarship restriction of 85, will now have a roster limit of 105 — a 20-scholarship increase for those schools willing to give the maximum. Baseball, with a current scholarship restriction of 11.7, is expected to have a roster of 34 — a 22.3 scholarship increase.

As is the case now, schools are not required to distribute scholarships to each player.

Those that are not defendants in the settlement case — schools and conferences in the Group of Five, FCS and non-football playing Division I programs — are bound by the roster limits, reporting system and enforcement mechanism only if they choose to share revenue with athletes. They can opt out of the new model if they decline to share revenue.

As part of a stipulation in the settlement, no sport saw a reduction in scholarship spots.

Many schools are preparing to increase scholarships significantly. According to several power conference administrators who spoke to Yahoo Sports, programs are planning to spend $3-7 million in additional scholarships each year, some of which ($2.5 million) can count toward the annual revenue-sharing cap, expected to begin at or around $21.5 million.

For some elite power programs, the total cost of both the scholarship additions and the sharing of revenue with athletes will exceed $30 million annually. To maintain compliance with the federal Title IX law, any scholarship increases in a men’s sport will likely need to be replicated in a women’s sport, driving up the additional costs.

But not all programs can afford to add so many additional scholarships. Some administrators are in the process of “tiering” their sports by decreasing investment on certain programs and increasing investment in others. This includes staff and salary cuts as well as the reduction in scholarships from Olympic sports, especially those that generate little to no revenue.

Here’s the full list of new roster limits: