The Landscape of NCAA Olympic Sports

We occasionally run across information or storylines that affect all of the NCAA, but there is no where here to place that Info for those interested.

And example is the recent 5 in 5 ruling that has its own thread.

I thought it would be good to have a thread to discuss broader issues just to remove future clutter.

Here is an agency reporting the size of individual NIL deals in various sports. There is only so much information to be gleaned from single deal averages, as it does not:

1. separate out p4 programs
2. indicate how many deals each player has on average
3. elucidate on any outliers that may be meaningful
4. place a number on revenue sharing

But it does seem to indicate that the NIL money out there for Olympic sports is just not all that significant. Even if say a top tennis player at a top school had significantly larger deals and multiple deals, I find it hard to believe we are talking about 6 digit payouts.

Long post I put in another thread (women's lacrosse) on exceptions to roster caps:

there are four mechanisms where a team that appears to be over their roster limit may in fact be fine.

1. A long-term injury where you know before the season starts that an athlete will be out for the year.

• Current-Year Count: If an athlete is on the certified pre-season roster, they occupy a roster spot for that entire season, regardless of whether a medical hardship or injury prevents them from practicing or competing.
• Next-Year Exemption: A student-athlete who sits out an entire season due to injury or illness may be officially exempted from counting against the sport's roster limit beginning with the roster year following the injury.
• Financial Aid Exception: Schools are permitted to renew or honor an existing athletic financial aid agreement for a medically sidelined player without counting them toward the roster limit, provided the athlete does not participate in any countable, required, or voluntary athletically related activities after the roster deadline.
• Strict Roster Locking: Once a school certifies its roster in the Compliance Assistant internet (CAi) system before the season begins, only the athletes explicitly listed on that roster are allowed to practice or compete.

So, as an example, Lauren Malsom just announced she will miss this year in soccer. That means UNC technically gained a roster spot for the upcoming season. Coach Nahas could in theory go find a one year grad transfer to fill that roster spot.

in a sport like Women’s Lacrosse there are usually multiple season ending injuries every year. If a coach wanted to be really aggressive with their roster management they could assume at least one every year while recruiting. Obviously this would be pretty risky if you did not know already someone was out for the upcoming year.

note that there are now no more medical redshirts to bank a year for future use. So if you designate a player to be out for the year you better be sure there is little chance of recovery during the season or you are causing her to lose opportunity.

2. Grandfathered walk-ons (DSA’s aka Designated Student Atletes) from before the House v NCAA ruling who retain their walk-on status.

• Any student-athlete designated as "grandfathered" does not count against the team’s new roster limits. For example, if a football program has a roster cap of 105 players but retains 10 grandfathered walk-ons, they are permitted to carry 115 players on their active roster.
• Eligibility Criteria: To qualify for this protected status, the athlete must fall into one of these buckets:
• Current Roster Members: They were on the school's active roster before the settlement took effect.
• Re-hired / Cut Walk-ons: If a school prematurely cut a walk-on in anticipation of the new roster caps, the school was required to offer that roster spot back under the grandfather clause.
• The 2025-26 Freshmen Class: Incoming freshmen who had a previously promised walk-on spot revoked or honored prior to settlement implementation are also eligible for grandfathered protection.
• Portability (The Transfer Rule): Grandfathered status is fully portable. If a legacy walk-on decides to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal, they carry their "exempt" status with them to their new school. Their new program can add them without the player counting against that school's roster cap.
• Duration of Status: The exemption remains valid for the entire duration of the athlete's college eligibility. It only expires once the student-athlete exhausts their biological eligibility clock or graduates
• Important: schools had to last that player as a DSA in 2025-26; they had to be on an official list submitted to the NCAA.

The transfer rule is interesting: we may pick up players at any time who do not count. In theory, this may apply to any Ivy League transfer as an example, provided they were a DSA.

3. Grandfathered partial scholarship recipients from before the House v NCAA settlement: the NCAA used to divide sports between those that only allowed full scholarships (Examples: Football, Men's & Women's Basketball, Women's Volleyball, Women's Tennis, Women's Gymnastics) and Partial Scholarship Sports (pretty much everything else- Examples: Baseball, Softball, Track & Field, Soccer, Lacrosse) These sports have always used the "equivalency" model, where a coach would split a small pool of scholarships (like baseball's old 11.7 limit) across a much larger roster. The impact post House v. NCAA:

• The key point here is that DSAs were not just limited to walk-in’s; it also could include anyone on partial scholarship.
• If a grandfathered player ( DSA) was already on a 25% athletic scholarship (as an example), that specific partial scholarship financial agreement is protected. The school can maintain that exact partial aid without the player counting toward the sport's new maximum roster limit.
• Once a DSA, the transfer portal does not limit the compensation you could receive in the portal. So, if for example, your pervious school gave you 25% scholarship, you could transfer to a new school on full scholarship, and still retain your DSA status, not counting against the roster at your new school.

I did not know this before researching today: teams like Women’s Lacrosse likely had tons of women on partial scholarship. The NCAA only allowed 12 scholarship equivalencies but teams routinely carried rosters around 40 or more. So logically we could have a large handful of women grandfathered in at a their former partial scholarship level, provided they were willing to stay at UNC with that same partial.

It is worth noting that all sports are now allowed partials: there are no more head count sports. But starting with the 2026-27 incoming class all newly enrolled HS athletes and transfers who are not DSAs will count against your roster limit regardless of walk-on, partial or full scholarship status.

UNC is working toward fully funding a scholarship for every athlete at UNC, we added 200 new scholarships after the house v NcAA ruling eliminated scholarship caps. But we still have a long way to go: over 200 scholarships still not funded. So it is logical that a sport like lacrosse may not year have every roster soit covered. So it is also logical that Levy may choose to handle this by still having some partials to spread the wealth.

4. Greyshirts: UNC has not used deferred enrollment for athletes too often but it has happened in the past. If a team has a mistake with roster counts we may find in rare occasions where an athlete is asked to enroll a Aeneas tee or an entire year later. Assuming they have not yet turned 19 this will not affect their 5 year eligibility.

In about 4 years the last of those grandfathered players will graduate. At that point options 2 & e will disappear and coaches can only uae
Options 1 & 4.

CosmicHeel said:

I feel like I've read conflicting things about this so I'm hoping you can clear it up. Can a walk-on be grandfathered as a DSA even if they were never at risk of being cut because their team was never at or over the roster limit? To keep your football example going, if a football team only had 90 on their roster in 2025-2026 and 5 of them were walk-ons, could the coach have still designated those five as DSAs and exempt them from future caps if the coach wanted the option to exceed the cap during those athletes' tenure? And if so, would that athlete retain their DSA status if they were later awarded a scholarship?

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Here is my interpretation: A Designated Student Athlete is only a Designated Student Athlete if the athletic department goes through the effort to make them a Designated Student Athlete. There is an official list. That list is private. That list had a deadline of July 6th. 2025. Nobody can be added after that date.

Logically, If a particular team is already over the limit then they would have done this: no brainier. Logically, if they had the foresight to prepare for current and future flexibility to recruit, then they should have put people on this list. The settlement simply said that teams had to use "good faith" and not abuse the rule. But how that was audited, I have no idea.

Did teams go further and just wholesale list every athlete on partial scholarship or a walk-on as DSAs? Would they be allowed to do that? I do not know.

But we do know that teams used the DSA exception a ton for male only sports football and baseball. UNC stated this practice publicly for both teams, as an example. Those sports faced massive roster cuts and they are "important" enough that athletic departments protected everyone they could in both, even if their level of contribution was negligible or practice only. And those players are Title IX counters, even if not on scholarship. So if a particular school protected say 50 football and baseball players, they would need to find a way to protect roughly 50 women as well. That may have incentivized a school like UNC to dig deep in gymnastics, field hockey, VB, plus many of the both male & female team sports as well.

I suspect that UNC has a ton of DSAs across Olympic sports.

As stated earlier the list is private. We do not know who is on it. An athlete can log in and see their status. A coach at another school can not check status which would allow tampering. When an athlete enters the portal, they can check a box that says they are a DSA. Then other teams recruiting them would know.

One correction from my original post: I have since learned that the entire Ivy League opted out of the House V NCAA settlement. That means that they have no roster limits. That also means they have no DSAs entering the portal. So when we land an Ivy League transfer, they are pretty much guaranteed to be a roster counter.

The entire P4 opted in. Only 54 D1 schools opted out of the House V NCAA settlement. Those include the entire Ivy League, The entire Patriot league except Boston U, and all of the service academies. Then it is a bunch of randoms, but here are some locals that may be interesting: Charleston Southern, NCCU, UNC-A, Citadel, VMI, and Gardner-Webb. Logically, any of their transfers are roster counters, unless they previously were a DSA at another school. Queens University also opted out, But Elon U opted in. Not sure how that will play out, lol.

81Heel/M1 said:

It is interesting that the ncaa made no adjustments to roster limits with the 5 for 5 rule. For sports the routinely redshirt pretty much all athletes, it will have little impact. I could see this making roster management a little more challenging for baseball, as an example, where they routinely lost players to the draft after 2 or 3 years. With 5 years eligibility some of those players could come back an extra year and still have the threat of returning to college as a negotiating tool with professional teams. Balancing the freshman class, transfer portal, and any extra players returning to improve their draft status could possibly make this an extra difficulty for coaches managing a fixed roster limit.

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I honestly have no idea how baseball coaches manage the current landscape. So many transfers including D2 guys making a splash, junior college, losing HS recruits plus jrs to the draft, limited roster, huge shift in scholarships, NIL, etc…