Can someone please explain to me, like I'm a 10 year old, why roster limitations were part of this agreement? Every article mentions it, and every article mentions the $22M/year for revenue sharing, and every article mentions that that the schools may fully fund scholarships. Yet no reason is given for the roster limitations, and why you still can't just have non-scholarship walk-ons? Is it because they would be entitled to revenue sharing? Is that it?

The simple answer is that the NCAA is involved...

i do think you are correct about the revenue sharing. It's crazy to see these unintended consequences of this lawsuit/settlement. Our current men's team has 52. Even with 16 listed as seniors or graduates, someone has to go and that leaves no room for incoming freshman. Makes no sense to me....

Which team did you mean?

My daughter is on a track roster, but can't work out with the cross-country team any more because she didn't make that roster. It's the same coach for both.

This is more insane than the cream cheese bagel rules.

Sorry, was talking about the current A&M roster.
As I understand it, XC roster is now, moving forward, limited to 10, which is crazy...

Then add in anyone that has transferred in after 2 yrs @ a JUCO will have more than just 2 yrs of eligibility in D1 is insane...

94chem said:

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Can someone please explain to me, like I'm a 10 year old, why roster limitations were part of this agreement? Every article mentions it, and every article mentions the $22M/year for revenue sharing, and every article mentions that that the schools may fully fund scholarships. Yet no reason is given for the roster limitations, and why you still can't just have non-scholarship walk-ons? Is it because they would be entitled to revenue sharing? Is that it?

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The NCAA is tired of getting constantly sued (and losing). If the roster limit doesn't equal the scholarship limit, the NCAA is the one mandating that some athletes cannot get a scholarship for their contributions. That sets the NCAA up for a lawsuit as they are denying scholarships to some athletes and enforcing that among all of their members.

If the roster limit equals the scholarship limit, any athlete not getting a scholarship and walking on is due to an individual school decision. Any athlete upset at that would need to fight their school as opposed to the NCAA itself.

In short, the NCAA doesn't want to be the party responsible for any athlete not getting a scholarship.

Okay, but my daughter made the track roster, but she is on an academic scholarship, and get Alston money, and is eligible for NIL. It seems the colleges are also complicit in the roster limitations, because they want to conserve as much of the $22million as they can for their "best" athletes, i.e. men in revenue sports. Isn't this yet another step toward the end of Title IX? Once football becomes fully NIL funded, schools will be able to de-fund 105 women's scholarships.

Football will never become "fully NIL funded". You're talking about $90M in expenses.

But even if it did, football players will always receive scholarships. They won't allow the private funding of those scholarships as a "workaround" for Title IX.

https://instagr.am/p/DHObVYgRyj-

Harry Dunne said:

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Football will never become "fully NIL funded". You're talking about $90M in expenses.

But even if it did, football players will always receive scholarships. They won't allow the private funding of those scholarships as a "workaround" for Title IX.

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Only a small part of that $90M is scholarships. At $50K/yr, 100 scholarships is only $5M. Colleges have been inflating their costs of attendance for yers so they could pay the players. Now the incentive would be to deflate the costs.

Yes OFC, but you're missing the point:

As you know, one of the components to satisfy Title IX is equal scholarships. Equal spending (football being the prime example) has obviously never been a component. Nor IMO should it be, because this is a business.

The point is that football players will always get scholarships. A school won't be able to get away with funding football scholarships privately in order not count those scholarships and skirt the responsibility of providing women's scholarships.

I do agree that the financial separation between revenue and NR sports will continue to get bigger, but it's hard to argue against that. Again, this is a business. Why should a business be forced to spend the same money on areas that generate revenue vs. areas that don't?

They shouldn't, but it seems like the NCAA and the universities would both want reduced roster sizes, so they can blame each other. The NCAA incentive would be so that some non-scholarship player doesn't sue them 10 years later for lost revenue. The university incentive would be so they don't have to share the $22M with any more athletes than necessary. The NCAA can blame the death of the walk-on on the thought crimes of future athletes. The universities can blame it on the NCAA. What am I missing?

...other than the observation that none of this is based on real world economics. For starters, in the real world professors pay overhead from their grants and can't leave every year.

94chem said:

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Okay, but my daughter made the track roster, but she is on an academic scholarship, and get Alston money, and is eligible for NIL. It seems the colleges are also complicit in the roster limitations, because they want to conserve as much of the $22million as they can for their "best" athletes, i.e. men in revenue sports. Isn't this yet another step toward the end of Title IX? Once football becomes fully NIL funded, schools will be able to de-fund 105 women's scholarships.

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The NCAA is just a collection of colleges with decisions made by the colleges' leadership which runs the NCAA. So yes, the colleges are definitely complicit in anything the NCAA does.

The concepts of running football like a business and funding non-revenue sports (even because of title ix) are opposites. I don't think anyone knows exactly how it will finally shake out. Decreasing opportunities for some of those in non-revenue sports is almost certainly going to be part of it (through roster limits and schools dropping some sports completely). I think the biggest question is just how deep will the cuts be.

Some schools will certainly cut non-revenue sports. However I think A&M is in the same bucket as Texas, and will fully fund everything.

https://www.chron.com/sports/college/article/texas-ticket-prices-scholarships-revenue-20191773.php
(2/27/25)

Quote:

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Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte announced on Wednesday a projected $30-million increase in costs for Longhorns' athletic programs.

The plan, which will add 200 scholarships across both men's and women's sports and incorporate the sharing of publicity rights, comes ahead of the April 7 "House vs. NCAA" settlement approval hearing.
. . .
So, Del Conte is confident in adding 200 scholarships across men's and women's sports, increasing the number of women's athletic scholarships from 125 to 267, and men's from 141.2 to 199. Those scholarship numbers are compliant with Title IX, which requires the university to afford opportunities to athletes in proportion to the student population, which is an estimated 60 percent female at Texas.

However, there are still roster limits. For example, while Texas will increase men's baseball scholarships from 11.7 to 25, there is still a roster limit of 34 players who will be eligible to receive scholarships.
"We're good at everything, we're going to fully fund every single one of our sports at the highest division, so when it says for women's volleyball, if we can go from 6 to 19, we're going to 19, " Del Conte said during Wednesday Town Hall.
. . .
He projects the program will bring in $13 million in new revenue while making $6 million-worth of budget reductions and staff efficiencies. If that $19 million in revenue is subtracted from the $29.7 million increase in cost, that leaves a total of $10.7 million in unfunded costs.

But how will Del Conte bring in that new revenue for all of athletics?

Answer: Del Conte will increase football season ticket prices, the main revenue driver, by $13 per game, a total cost increase of $80 per season ticket.
. . .
He hopes that baseball will be able to fund itself in 2026, rather than using part of the football ticket revenue, since its season tickets are the third-best revenue driver.

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It's hard to imagine A&M would do any less than Texas if for no other reason the optics.

Interesting POV about walk ons. I had never considered that and I bet you're right.

You can still have walk-ons, just not an unlimited number of them. If you fill up the entire roster with scholarship players, then you have no room for walk-ons.

I don't know why everyone says they are "fully-funding" when they really aren't. That article about Texas indicates that they are funding only 25 roster spots in baseball out of an eligible 34. That means they will have 9 walk-ons in baseball.

I suspect the SEC plans to agree to limit baseball scholarships at the same level of the softball roster limit which is 25. Trev Alberts also has announced that we will be "fully-funding" our rosters, but that is not possible with the sports we currently sponsor. The roster limits for our men's sport have 265 spots while the women's sport's have 247 roster spots. 18 men's roster spots will have to be unfunded (likely 9 of those from baseball reading between the lines) or another women's sport must be added. Texas planning to have 199 men's scholarships seems to indicate that they will not actually be fully funding all their sports either. I suspect things like Track and Field and CC will be kind of merged, with athletes have spots on two rosters, especially on the mens side.

You only have to meet this test to meet Title IX compliance.

[url=https://www.atixa.org/blog/a-new-approach-to-title-ix-athletic-compliance/#_ftnref6][6][/url] The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights' Three-Part Test provides that institutions comply with Title IX if they meet any one of the following parts of the test: (1) the number of male and female athletes is substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments;

A&M overall enrollment is 53% male to 47% female, therefore it can sponsor and fund more males and still be in Title IX compliance.

We need a gymnastics team anyway.