NCAA Expected to Increase Athletics Scholarships in 2025-26
College sports look more different than ever, and changes are still coming.
Over the past few years, the NCAA and college athletics have undergone a transformational period, bringing sports to a place they have never been. With significant changes such as the transfer portal and NIL, the college sports world has changed drastically in the past decade.
The landscape of college sports will continue to change, with potentially more scholarships for athletics. On Wednesday, Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports reported that new roster limits will be introduced for many sports.
Roster-size limits are expected to be introduced after discussions among power conference commissioners on Tuesday. With the new revenue-sharing models across college athletics, these new roster limits will also eliminate by-sport scholarship limits.
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Beginning in 2025-26, schools will be able to offer scholarships to their entire rosters, a significant upgrade for most sports. Football will see a sizeable increase from 85 scholarships to 105.
Meanwhile, these new rules transform the entirety of the baseball landscape, which will go from a scholarship limit of 11.7 to 34, nearly tripling the amount of scholarships available. Softball will also have a significant increase from 12 to 25.
Basketball will also be affected by the change, but not to the same extent as most of the other sports. Currently, the sport has 13 scholarships available, and that number will jump to 15.
While these changes could cause significant ripples throughout college sports, they might not have an immediate impact to its fullest extent. Despite more scholarships being available, schools will not be required to offer that many scholarships, which is how things operate now.
Still, Oklahoma State will have an opportunity to take a step forward in the Big 12 in many sports in the next few years, and these changes could help it get over the hump.
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Ivan is a sports media student at Oklahoma State University. He has covered OSU athletics since 2022 and also covers the OKC Thunder for Inside The Thunder and Thunderous Intentions.