NCAA Provides Scholarship, Roster Relief for Division-I Programs

In the early parts of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was determined that senior spring sport athletes would be eligible to return to college with a redshirt of sorts, and Wednesday that became a little more clear with NCAA baseball teams.

The NCAA Division I Committee for Legislative Relief voted to expand rosters and scholarship limits for upcoming school year, according to D1Baseball’s Kendall Rogers.

Division-I baseball teams normally have a 35-man limit on their rosters, but with the vote, that is eliminated for the school year. The NCAA also voted to increase the number of players able to be on scholarship from 27 to 32.

An interesting part in that is Division-I baseball programs have 11.7 full-ride scholarships at their disposals, so that is usually divided up. In a normal year, players on scholarship are required to receive at least 25 percent of the total cost of attendance at their university, but with the recent vote, that 25 percent rule is eliminated for one year. That gives coaches the ability to further spread their allotted 11.7 scholarships.