mdanyc03 said:

---

I will beat this drum every chance I get.

College baseball absolutely needs more scholarships. It isn't a major revenue generator now but it has so much potential to grow.

The problem is that college baseball has 351 division 1 teams. SEC and ACC and Big 12 could easily afford to add 4 more scholarships but most schools cannot. Most of college baseball is basically a non spectator sport. A couple of dozen people walking up and sitting in lawn chairs.

College baseball needs to pare it down to 120 or whatever Division 1-A teams with 16 scholarships and then everybody else can keep their 11.7. Let them increase softball too to match for Title IX. That would SIGNIFICANTLY improve the quality of play. There are a lot of borderline prospects that would go to college baseball rather than sign out of high school if they could get full scholarships at big programs. And MLB would be thrilled because it is free (to them) development and older, more developed prospects coming into their farm systems.

Time to improve the product and let the sport reach its potential. SEC baseball in particular is really showing the potential of becoming a big time sport. Great facilities, lots of fan interest, great game atmospheres. Coaches are making over a million a year. And yet we have mostly walk on athletes on the field because Bowling Green and Stony Brook can't afford scholarships. It doesn't make any sense.

---

Agree with this

Quote:

---

That would SIGNIFICANTLY improve the quality of play.

---

I was going to ask this question the other day but held off. But I'll ask it now.

What's the expectation for the other 200 schools that get left behind and would have 25% less scholarship money to offer?

What's the plan for growing the quality of play and growing the sport outside of the top few conferences?

Quote:

---

I just don't think the sport is going to grow much in popularity until the talent level increases. I love college baseball but from a talent on the field stand point, you can have your tv on for five minutes and see it is far below the relative talent level in college football or basketball.

---

I am not sure I follow your logic here. So if the Aggie football team plays a middle of the pack NFL team, the Aggie basketball team plays a middle of the pack NBA team, and the Aggie baseball team plays a middle of the pack MLB team......which sport can remotely hang with the pro team?

I suppose baseball lends itself more to looking competitive than the other sports. I don't know.

But I think the point is for what you're going to get out of 18-22 year olds, college baseball is behind the others.

Well, I'll leave basketball out of it because that could be a long thread of its own but college basketball is suffering, so its kind of irrelevant to this conversation.

All the best 18-22 year old football players in the world are playing college football. Far from all the best 18-22 baseball players are playing college baseball.

12th Man Ag said:

---

AgCynic2 said:

---

It's also worth pointing out that private schools like TCU and Rice effectively have more scholarships that everyone else in baseball because they give so many academic scholarships to baseball players. It's not really a level playing field.

---

Have always heard this argument. Why can't A&M hand out academic scholarships to level the playing field? Are we restricted on this because we are a public school?

---

Private schools have much lower scholarship thresholds, and a much larger percentage of students who receive financial aid. A lot of the kids that they recruit for baseball will clear the fairly low bar required to get an academic scholarship. At A&M, the bar is much higher, and we can't give academic aid to recruits that we wouldn't give to non-athletes.

twk said:

---

12th Man Ag said:

---

AgCynic2 said:

---

It's also worth pointing out that private schools like TCU and Rice effectively have more scholarships that everyone else in baseball because they give so many academic scholarships to baseball players. It's not really a level playing field.

---

Have always heard this argument. Why can't A&M hand out academic scholarships to level the playing field? Are we restricted on this because we are a public school?

---

Private schools have much lower scholarship thresholds, and a much larger percentage of students who receive financial aid. A lot of the kids that they recruit for baseball will clear the fairly low bar required to get an academic scholarship. At A&M, the bar is much higher, and we can't give academic aid to recruits that we wouldn't give to non-athletes.

---

Exempted scholarships at private schools are not "low bars." The requirements for places like TCU, Vanderbilt, Rice, etc. have been posted several times on this board.

And private schools can't give academic aid to recruits they wouldn't give to non-athletes and have that exempted, either.