From D1Baseball:
Here are the details of the extended waiver:
For starters, while teams have the luxury of unlimited rosters for the 2021 season, that will change for the 2022 campaign. In a normal season, teams are allowed to have just 35 players on an active roster. And while it is unlimited for the upcoming campaign, that number will shift to 40 in 2022, a five-person increase from a normal season.
A majority of coaches will enjoy this move. In a survey initiated by the ABCA earlier this fall, 58.3% of coaches voted in favor of a 40-man roster in 2022.
The roster counters are just an extension of the current rule. Previously, 27 players were allowed on scholarship, with that number increasing to 32 for the 2021 season. That number will stay at 32 for the 2022 season. Unlike the roster management part of the ABCA’s proposal, the idea of staying at 32 counters did not receive majority support in the ABCA’s survey, with the percentage falling just short of 50% at 49.7%.
The final prong of the committee’s blanket waiver deals with the 25% rule. For a second-straight season, the NCAA will not require programs to give student athletes 25% of a scholarship in 2022. This is a much more contentious debate amongst college baseball coaches when it comes to the long-term application of the rule. But for now, 53% of coaches surveyed told the ABCA they preferred to have the 25% rule eliminated for the 2022 season. It’s worth noting that should coaches want a long-term elimination of this rule, it would need to be in the form of a legislative amendment, not the waiver process, which is being applied here. The NCAA’s legislative cycle is on hold until January.
There are some rules attached to the elimination of the 25% rule.
For instance, for the 2021 season, if a student athlete is on a multi-year financial aid agreement, schools may provide less than 25% equivalency as long as a school ensures that the total amount of aid provided over a period of the new amended agreement is equal to or greater than the total provided in the student-athlete’s original agreement. For a player in a one-year agreement, the program must provide a scholarship amount that equals the average of 25% and the revised amount. The same rules will apply for multi-year agreements in 2022, with the one-year agreements being slightly different. Heading into the 2022-2023 academic year, the program must provide 25% of a scholarship, or the average between 25% and the aid received in 2021-2022.
With baseball receiving additional roster and scholarship relief, the attention now turns to the NCAA and its decision on how the 2020 campaign will process. There are rumblings that the season could be pushed back to March, among other changes.
For now, though, more relief is on the way, and that’s a great development.