M X-country 17 20
W X-country 17 22
M fencing 24 14
W fencing 24 11
Field hockey 27 25
M lacrosse 48 43
W lacrosse 38 28
M water polo 24 18
W water polo 24 18
M swimming 30 35
W swimming 30 35
M soccer 28 30
W soccer 28 24
My son’s team has 2 more players on the roster than the upcoming roster limits allow. Interestingly, of the 30 players on the team 16 will graduate in May. The coaches will obviously bring in a much larger transfer/recruiting class than is customary, but it will still be 2 players less than it could have been.
Last year, XC/TF star Parker Valby (who just ran Paris Olympics 10,000m) from the University of Florida signed an NIL with Nike. This followed a similar deal by NC State’s XC/TF star Katelyn Tuohy with Adidas. Terms weren’t disclosed, but analysts estimate such deals are worth $50,000 to $150,000 annually.
I don’t doubt teams can continue to operate successfully, but it’s a huge impact for the athletes. The Princeton men’s track team currently has 73 athletes. Assuming most schools opt in, there is going to be a significant trickle-down effect.
If you have a few runners get injured, and a few first years who aren’t quite ready to contribute, a squad size limit of 17 can start to get tight for an XC team, especially if 800 runners are supposed to count against XC, as opposed to track.
I agree there’ll be pressure on some programs but I’m not sure of the magnitude.
There are quite a few top D1 programs carrying less than 45 athletes in combined programs now. 50ish, give or take, is probably pretty typical.
Those are programs that don’t really take walk-ons or roster marginal athletes, which is probably where things are heading for more programs.
As for Ivies, I don’t think it’s clear that they’ll opt in to this framework but if they did I imagine they’d stop rostering walk-ons and more athletes would run unattached. They’re already limited to 33 Heps competitors anyway, so they’d prioritize roster slots with that in mind. The 10k/XC specialists wouldn’t be rostered in Track unless they’d get Heps points (which in practical terms isn’t that different from the way teams like Princeton operate now).
I don’t think redshirts will count and I don’t think 800 guys will be rostered for XC.
So I think at that point 17 will work okay. Teams like NAU, Wisconsin, Stanford, etc. don’t usually carry many more than that anyway.
I do think it’ll mean the 1:53 800 or 4:15 1600 runner that might’ve had a roster spot on the Track team when there was no opportunity cost will be out of luck at some of these programs.
If you take away 800 guys and redshirts, 17 becomes a reasonable roster size for XC. I am curious how redshirts will play out in terms of access to facilities, etc., as that would defeat the purpose of the headcount. Certainly lots of changes happening, and most of them will not help sports like track and swimming.
I don’t follow this as closely as many here, but the portal is often one-way – out – for high academic schools. There aren’t a ton on student athletes who are academically prepared to move to Princeton as a junior. A few, yes. But most, no. Stanford has been a case study for this. Women’s sports are affected as well, especially those where pro sport recruiting is an issue.
All these schools have long had to fish in a smaller pool for their frosh players to get ones who couldsucceed as both students and athletes, and replacing transferring players is even harder. Otoh, there will be more places for frosh.
the issue for schools like Pton and Stanford is that they have historically just accepted a handful of transfers, if any. And at Stanford, they were nearly all non-traditionals: single parent going back to school, former military person, etc.
So getting in sync with the transfer Portal is a huge shift in mission/vision for the Uni which goes way beyond the athletic dept.
Yes. The football coach recognizes that their roster is going to be the one they develop internally, not one that will include a lot of transfers in.
I don’t see an issue with that and don’t expect the school to change its admissions policoes as a result. It simply adds to the constraints when building a roster.
Sports have roster maximums now, but the team may have more actually working out with the team, on a jv roster, not officially part of the team, or on IR.
We’ve all seen Rudy. “The NCAA really hamstrings us with the limit of dressing only 60 for games.” Yet there were more on scholarship, and even more practicing.
As of right now, the roster limits are for the Power 4 conference schools and it starts in the 2025-2026 season. Other conferences or teams that opt in to revenue sharing will have the same roster limits. The Ivy League has not made a decision yet about this. So currently no roster limits in the Ivy League.
Realistically, I think these changes will affect the Ivy League less than most leagues. They might not pay, but can help you get into a great school with outstanding need-based financial aid. That will continue to be appealing for many.
I just dont see where the extra money will come from to pay athletes. Boosters are willing to pay football and basketball players (and apparently a softball player), but I suspect this is close to a zero sum game with respect to donations to the athletic departments. We see some very high level athletes can get NIL deals from shoe, swimsuit, etc. companies. Some athletes who have great social media savvy are able to cash in on influencer status. Some local companies will divert advertising budget to pay for certain athletes. But in general, I don’t see much of a market to pay an all-America level (as opposed to Olympic level) high jumper enough salary to really make a difference.
I don’t think any of the booster pacs pay the athletic department. Boosters have always been able to contribute money to the athletic departments but not to pay athletes directly. Now they can pay the athletes directly. Baylor’s pays every athlete, even the high jumper. Every athlete gets the same money, $25k. I believe Penn State gives money to most if not all athletes, but not just basketball and football. The really good athletes can get their own NIL deals, but the booster pacs are there to spread the wealth.
I don’t know of any athletic departments paying athletes directly except with their scholarships and stipends. Some do have NIL officers helping to connect students with those who want to do a NIL deal, or maybe with a team that wants to do a deal, but I don’t think the contract is with the university and then the business pays the university and then the university gives out the money (and the W-2). The big names like last year Bronny James and Olivia Dunn and Shedeur Sanders make their own deals.
I think the article pointed out that the Ivies do not have the NIL coordinators or the alum pacs to dole out money, but that if an Ivy athlete gets his own NIL deal, that’s allowed.
I have the same understanding of the current situation as you. My point is that the checks to the NIL pacs that boosters are now writing are probably instead of the checks that were being written to the athletic department a few years ago, not in addition to. The proposed changes will allow schools to give many more full scholarships than they can now, and pay students directly on top of that (which they can’t do, now). An NIL stipend of $25K to each athlete on the track team costs significantly less than the extra scholarships needed to go from the current NCAA scholarship limits for track (12.6 full boat equivalents for men) to a full boat for every athlete on the track team (perhaps 30?), which is being proposed as allowed under the upcoming changes.
Are the boosters going to give more, is the U’s contribution to athletics going to go up, or are student athletic fees going up? Where is the money going to come from? When it all shakes out, outside of a small number of big time football programs I don’t think that many athletes will be paid that much. It will be devastating for Olympic sports teams at any school that tries to keep up, but I don’t think it will have as much of an impact on the Ivy League programs as many other.
I don’t see many full rides happening, especially for a sport like track and field. I expect overall less scholarship money going to track athletes, even if a given team increases their roster size and/or ‘fully’ funds the team.
I agree that the money has to come somewhere for all these changes, but power 5 schools will be ok…they have plenty of money coming in, and can make cuts where they need to. I expect some ADs are chomping at the bit to use these changes as an excuse to pare down non-revenue sports. No idea how many other schools are going to opt-in to the changes.
I also agree that some Olympic sports are going to face cuts at many schools, along with other sports.
I think the old system of boosters giving money to the athletic departments went to specific things like scoreboards and weight rooms and not to scholarships. In the really old days it went into duffel bags of cash to Eric Dickerson and a house for Reggie Bush’s mother but directly from the schools it was only scholarships. My brother went to a football camp at U of Oklahoma as an 8th grader and is still talking about the weight room 50 years later, that alums donated a steer every week so the team would always have beef, that everything was top of the line. (same about outstanding facilities at UMiami years later) A few schools may have an alum scholarship for a swimmer or hockey player, but that’s just accounting and how the school moves money around. Many schools have men’s crew (named) scholarships but that’s because men’s crew is not an NCAA sport. Again, just accounting.
I agree that few schools will boost the number of scholarships on each team. Maybe lacrosse at Duke or Notre Dame or Hopkins, maybe another sport at a school that has a great soccer program or gymnastic. Many schools don’t fully fund the sports they have now.
And schools still have to balance the scholarships for title IX. One coach told me that the school would not/could not reduce the women’s lax scholarships because they had D1 football and they had to fund the women’s lax team to keep balance. The school my daughter chose also had a football team and needed to offset some of those football scholarships, but even then the women’s lax program was not fully funded and the coach could have given more $$ out under the NCAA limits.
I think the Ivy league will give the same number of scholarships they give now - zero. Students who need the scholarships will go somewhere else, just like they do now or transfer, as those mentioned in the article did.
agreed. I am trying to say that I don’t think there will be as much extra money for student athletes outside of football and basketball (and title IX equivalents) as some people are expecting, and when the Ivy League continues to not give scholarships it won’t make much of a difference.