College Baseball's Golden Age receives jolt with more scholarships on the way • D1Baseball
We're in the middle of college baseball's Golden Age, and the sport's situation is about to get even better with a move to allowing programs to offer full scholarships.
Division I Baseball is on the cusp of being in an incredible position from a scholarship standpoint. This week, Sankey confirmed to Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger, in this piece, that Division I Baseball is expected to settle on a roster limit between 32 and 35 players, which is a decrease from the 40-man roster that programs will enter the 2025 campaign with. That reality will make the evaluation process even more critical for coaches. However, the most important piece of news from Sankey is about the scholarship limit or lack thereof.
Division I Baseball is expected to permit programs to offer full scholarships to everyone on their roster. So, if the roster is set at 35 players, all 35 could ideally be on a full scholarship – quite a contrast from the current setup, which allows for 11.7 scholarships to be spread over a 40-man roster. Baseball will evolve from an equivalency to a head-count sport like football.
College athletics power brokers still need to decide on the actual roster size. That is still to be determined, though Sankey told Dellenger he expects the number to fall in the ‘mid-30s’. Sources believe the number will sit at 33 or 34, while Craig Keilitz, the executive director of the American Baseball Coaches Association, said his organization believes a 35-man roster is the sweet spot.
The changes are expected to go into effect in Fall 2025.
