The NCAA will move to increase scholarship limits as part of an agreement that will be filed on Friday according to a report from Ross Dellinger at Yahoo! Sports.
The move will increase the limit to football scholarships a program is able to grant from 85 to 105.
Men’s basketball adds two scholarships to bring its limit to 15 – that now matches women’s basketball, which was already at 15 before this deal. It’s worth noting that women’s basketball doesn’t typically fill its 15 scholarships at Iowa State.
Softball gains 13 allowed scholarships, moving to 25, while volleyball adds six to bring its allotted amount to 18.
Iowa State doesn’t field a baseball program, but the limit for baseball scholarships jumps from 11.7 to 34.
The new agreement will treat all sports as ‘equivalency sports,’ meaning they will be allowed to offer partial scholarships to players, similar to how college baseball operates.
There is expected to be more sports with scholarship limit increases in the agreement, as part of the distribution of $2.77 billion in back pay to former athletes in the case.
According to the report, no sport will receive a reduction to its scholarship limit, and it’s expected that many of the other sports not mentioned above will receive increases as well.
Not every athletic department around the country will be able to afford to fill the full amount of scholarships. The report states that administrators around the country are preparing to invest less or even cut a number of teams in athletic departments, especially in lesser-revenue Olympic sports.
CycloneFanatic will update this story as more information becomes available.
