Tag Archive for: NCAA Baseball Scholarship

NCAA Division I baseball programs will continue with increased roster size and scholarship limits for the 2023-24 academic year in a somewhat similar manner to the way they have been impacted for the past three years.

The reasons for these increased limits include:

  • Many athletes still having an additional year of eligibility available as the result of the NCAA rulings related to the pandemic.
  • Major League Baseball reducing the size of the MLB Draft from 40 rounds to 20 rounds.
  • The decrease in the number of minor league teams from 162 to 120.

There will be a 40-man limit on roster size for Division I programs during the 2024 baseball season.

  • Up to 32 student-athletes will be allowed to receive a baseball scholarship – an increase from the normal limit of 27 in Division I.
  • The additional “counters” (scholarship athletes counting against the team scholarship limit) must be included in the maximum team limit of 11.7 scholarships and must be provided the minimum scholarship value of 25%.

If You Have Questions

About the scholarship rules in baseball or any other sport and how they could impact your student-athlete, schedule a confidential Scholarship Strategies consult online, send an email to rick@informedathlete.com or call our office at 913-766-1235.

The July 1st deadline for NCAA Division I and II schools to notify scholarship student-athletes of the status of their athletic scholarship for the 2020-21 academic year has passed.

However, there are still some scholarship issues that can impact athletes – In this particular case, incoming baseball recruits.

On a recent baseball forum that I follow, there was a report of a coach who has reportedly asked multiple recruits to “release themselves” from their National Letter of Intent that they had signed with that program. Reasons that the coach cited for this request included:

  • The number of seniors who are returning for another season of eligibility
  • The number of juniors who would have likely been drafted this year but for the MLB draft being shortened to just 5 rounds.

As you can imagine, this puts these baseball athletes in a very difficult position.

(A similar situation could possibly happen in any sport, but it happens most often in baseball.)

An athlete in that situation could tell the coach that he intends to enroll at the university, work his tail off and receive the scholarship that he signed for.

As long as an athlete satisfies all of the university’s admission requirements and the NCAA requirements to be a Qualifier, the university would be required to honor that scholarship.

However, doing that places the athlete in a very awkward position.

He would already be starting off at a disadvantage by joining the team of a head coach and staff who expressly told him that they didn’t want him there on scholarship.

On the other hand, does this athlete have a realistic chance of finding another team to join and another university that will permit him to enroll at this late date?

If you have or know an athlete who is in a similar situation, let them know about our confidential Scholarship Strategies Consult, or have them contact us by calling 913-766-1235 or by sending an email to rick@informedathlete.com