NCAA to reportedly increase scholarships for multiple sports including football, baseball

Big changes are reportedly coming to college sports rosters next year.

Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports reports, per sources, that power conference commissioners approved scholarship increases for multiple sports. Football, baseball and softball are all receiving notable increases.

Here’s a look at the new roster sizes starting in 2025-26:

• Football: 105
• Men’s and women’s basketball: 15
• Baseball: 34
• Softball: 25
• Volleyball: 18

Football has been capped at 85 scholarships. NIL deals have allowed for some scholarship-caliber players to join programs as walk-ons, using third-party compensation to cover their academic expenses in place of a scholarship.

The Yahoo report notes that football’s scholarship limit may not apply until the start of the season, potentially allowing programs to go over the limit during camp.

The most notable increase might be for college baseball. Programs have long been dividing up 11.7 scholarships among their entire rosters. The college baseball community has long called out the low scholarship limit, and now programs will have nearly triple the amount of scholarships to use.

Softball scholarship limits will more than double from the current 12 to 25. Basketball, meanwhile, is only increasing by two scholarships from 13 to 15.

Yahoo notes the new scholarship figures are part of a long-form agreement in the House v. NCAA lawsuit. The document will include new scholarship numbers for other sports and state whether a sport’s roster-size limit will be the scholarship number or allow for walk-ons.

Power conference administrators told Yahoo that some programs are expecting $3-7 million annually on additional scholarships. The report states “most elite power programs” are looking at a cost of over $30 million per year in new scholarships and revenue sharing.

Andrew Olson

Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.