Kendall Rogers has been tweeting about the proceedings of the ABCA conference currently under way. It sounds like two noteworthy reforms are being discussed.

One is that a regional host will be able to stay in the home dug out throughout the regional. Common sense and no need to discuss.

The other is the removal of the 25% minimum scholarship. Currently, D1 teams are allowed to have 35 on roster of which 27 can receive scholarship aid of no less than 25%. Mid majors like this rule because it allows them to maybe pick up some guys that would otherwise fall in those 28-35 roster spots. Removing that rule would allow schools to spread the scholarships around to everybody. This is just what I have gathered from Kendall's twitter feed.

He also brings up a bigger issue, which is the 11.7 scholarship limitation. Bigger programs would obviously love to see this number go up to 15 or 17. Would be good for the student athletes but also good for the game of college baseball. Would be the difference in getting a few more kids into college baseball that would otherwise go to the minors (I am thinking of mid round draft picks with moderate signing bonuses that are open to both routes but choose to forego college because of less than full scholarship offers).

Of course the problem is that the vast majority of the 295 D1 college baseball programs are very low budget affairs that can't afford this. In fact, many apparently don't even use the 11.7 scholarships they have because they can't afford to. The obvious solution is to split to two sub divisions (like football FBS and FCS). Basketball is relatively cheap and hence there are 351 d 1 teams. Baseball has bigger rosters and SHOULD be more expensive and hence there should be something like 120 D 1A (with 15 scholarships) and the rest D1-AA (that can stay with 11.7).

My question, for anybody that knows, is how such a decision would be made. Is it a vote by the member institutions? If so, how can you convince the lower tier programs to vote themselves out when they in fact have a majority? And how much money is generated from the postseason and how is that money allocated?

Don't know but cool info.

Would the D1A and D1-AA schools get to compete?

All of that would be awesome

Great info in the OP. I agree that a scholarship increase would be good for the students and good for many programs and increase the quality at the highest levels of the sport.

Hard to say how much the NCAA makes from the baseball postseason, since, according to this article, it's rolled into a TV deal with the other non-basketball NCAA tournaments. On the whole, baseball is such a money loser for most schools that it would be hard to move the needle on scholarships for the teams that aren't really competitive or already making money.

Seems like you would need to offer the D1AA schools something in return; however, 11.7 is the biggest carrot in the bunch of items that they would care about since it has created parity as demonstrated by Coastal Carolina's championship. Maybe you could bribe the cold-weather schools by offering to start the season later in the year or compress the season, as WVU's coach has suggested. With a few possible exceptions, the SEC, ACC, Pac-12 & BDF schools would be in favor of increasing the scholarship limit.

There may be some other Southern programs like Liberty that have already demonstrated a willingness to invest in baseball that would go along with the increase. Do the northern Power 5 schools even care enough about baseball to go along, too? Seems like the D1A schools don't have nearly the leverage that the Power 5 do in football. There are too many baseball games in a season to suggest that the proposed D1A schools would take their ball and just schedule each other, like the P5 threatened to do in football in order to get autonomy.

If the WVU coach is correct that baseball is leaving money on the table by not moving it more into the summer, then that promise of additional revenue is the only carrot that looks big enough to outweigh the parity benefit that 11.7 has created for the bottom 175 schools.

OnlyForNow said:

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Don't know but cool info.

Would the D1A and D1-AA schools get to compete?

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Just to clarify, I don't think a scholarship increase is on the table necessarily. That is more a hypothetical.

Just brainstorming here:

What if scholarship limits were set by each conference. Max 15.

Obviously that would reduce parity (which is actually a GOOD thing with 295 teams) but if you allow the smaller conferences to stay in D1 and share to some degree in the postseason money, they may not oppose too much. It would keep a level playing field within conferences. And any limitations would be self imposed. Nobody would tell any conference that they had to keep fewer scholarships.

Let's say that the SEC, PAC 12, BIG 10, ACC networks agreed to support this and subsidize it a bit in TV deals and they would get a much better product to show in the spring/ summer.

It just seems to me that everybody is leaving money on the table by keeping that limit. I think there is a lot of demand in the SEC and ACC for college baseball and that demand would increase if the product improved.

Of course it would have to be accommodated in the women's side somehow too for Title IX. Even SEC schools wouldn't support this if they had to add a whole new sport on the women's side so they would have to increase the scholarship limit for existing women's sports too.

15 scholarships is not enough. Baseball needs to move to at lease 18 where more full rides could be given. It would be good for college baseball.

therein lies the rub...if you bump baseball scholarships to 15 or 16...you also have to increase scholarships on the women's side by 4 or 5. Or subtract 4 or 5 from another men's sport

zagman said:

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15 scholarships is not enough. Baseball needs to move to at lease 18 where more full rides could be given. It would be good for college baseball.

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I agree that we don't need 250 D1 programs, but you go to 18 sholarships and programs would start dropping like flies

And not just mid majors

Cal Berkeley nearly folded, and other programs are hanging on by a thread

I think there is also a general concern among university presidents and athletic directors that the college sports bubble is eventually going to burst. Especially if ESPN and the other cable companies are in as bad of shape as some media pundits think

W said:

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I think there is also a general concern among university presidents and athletic directors that the college sports bubble is eventually going to burst. Especially if ESPN and the other cable companies are in as bad of shape as some media pundits think

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Right but college baseball coaches are now getting million dollar contracts. Crazy that everyone carps about athletes not getting paid in other sports when they don't even get scholarships in baseball.

I really think a few more scholarships in baseball would be a prudent and worthy investment in resources.

Hop said:

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W said:

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therein lies the rub...if you bump baseball scholarships to 15 or 16...you also have to increase scholarships on the women's side by 4 or 5. Or subtract 4 or 5 from another men's sport

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Baseball had 15-16 scholarships 20 years ago and the schools voted to reduce that number down to 11.7 because of Title IX...so to think it will go the other way is highly unlikely.

I also think it will be a big mistake to eliminate the 25% minimum unless they eliminate the new transfer rule as well.Doing this would allow coaches to reduce scholarship percentages for veterans regardless of performance and that's simply not right unless they wave the transfer rule.

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It was 13 until the NCAA did a multi-sport 10% reduction in '87, thus 11.7 (1.3 less than previously).

I agree with you on the minimum. What you end up with is a bunch of kids playing for books, and a few super starts with meaningful scholarships.

Hop said:

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W said:

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therein lies the rub...if you bump baseball scholarships to 15 or 16...you also have to increase scholarships on the women's side by 4 or 5. Or subtract 4 or 5 from another men's sport

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Baseball had 15-16 scholarships 20 years ago and the schools voted to reduce that number down to 11.7 because of Title IX...so to think it will go the other way is highly unlikely.

I also think it will be a big mistake to eliminate the 25% minimum unless they eliminate the new transfer rule as well.Doing this would allow coaches to reduce scholarship percentages for veterans regardless of performance and that's simply not right unless they wave the transfer rule.

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I agree, not increasing the 11.7 and removing the 25% is just locking in more preferred walk-on players from being able to transfer.

allenb said:

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Hop said:

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W said:

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therein lies the rub...if you bump baseball scholarships to 15 or 16...you also have to increase scholarships on the women's side by 4 or 5. Or subtract 4 or 5 from another men's sport

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Baseball had 15-16 scholarships 20 years ago and the schools voted to reduce that number down to 11.7 because of Title IX...so to think it will go the other way is highly unlikely.

I also think it will be a big mistake to eliminate the 25% minimum unless they eliminate the new transfer rule as well.Doing this would allow coaches to reduce scholarship percentages for veterans regardless of performance and that's simply not right unless they wave the transfer rule.

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I agree, not increasing the 11.7 and removing the 25% is just locking in more preferred walk-on players from being able to transfer.

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D1 Baseball posted an update on the coaches convention. This excerpt stood out in light of your comment:

"An ABCA survey revealed that 65.4 percent of coaches want to get rid of the 25 percent rule, compared with 34.6 percent who want to keep it. That 20-point gap is pretty substantial. A smaller majority also wants to get rid of the 27-man counter rule: 59 percent to 41 percent.

Some coaches we spoke with liked UMass-Lowell's Ken Harring's suggestion: eliminate the 25 percent rule, but also bring back the one-time transfer exemption. Originally, the 25 percent rule and 27-man counter rule were put into place to force schools to make a more significant commitment to players, in exchange for players giving up their right to transfer freely. Forcing players to sit out a year when they transfer has dramatically cut down on transfers between four-year schools, which has helped boost baseball's Academic Progress Rate and that was the top priority of the entire legislative package. That no-transfer rule has been in place since 2008, and don't expect it to go away anytime soon after all, that's the single biggest reason that baseball's APR is no longer in trouble."