How are NCAA scholarship limits changing post-House settlement in 2027?

Direct Answer

Sport-specific scholarship caps are dead. As of July 1, 2025, the House v. NCAA settlement replaced the old 85-football / 11.7-baseball / 13-softball scholarship limits with hard roster limits and unlimited scholarships within those rosters — and the 2026-27 academic year is the first full cycle every opt-in athletic department is operating under the new math.

For football, the rule is now 105 roster spots, 105 possible scholarships, with Designated Student-Athletes (DSAs) grandfathered above the cap through the end of their eligibility. The new ceiling on direct revenue-share spend that pairs with these scholarships is roughly $21.3M per school for 2026-27 (the $20.5M Year-1 pool plus the 4% annual escalator).

1. What Actually Changed On July 1, 2025

1a. The old world (pre-House)

For 40+ years, Division I lived under sport-specific scholarship limits set by NCAA Bylaw 15.5. FBS football got 85 full scholarships, FCS football got 63 equivalencies, men's basketball got 13, women's basketball got 15, baseball got 11.7 equivalencies spread across 27 counters, softball got 12, men's soccer got 9.9, wrestling got 9.9.

Roster sizes were unrestricted — walk-ons filled the gap. A typical Power Four football program carried 120-130 athletes with only 85 on aid.

1b. The new world (House settlement era)

The House v. NCAA settlement — final approval June 6, 2025 by Judge Claudia Wilken in the Northern District of California — eliminated sport-specific scholarship caps entirely for opt-in schools and replaced them with roster limits. Inside the roster cap, every athlete can be on a full scholarship, partial scholarship, or no scholarship.

The NCAA Division I Board of Directors formally adopted the changes on June 23, 2025, effective July 1, 2025.

1c. Why "limits" is now a misleading word

The right framing for 2026-27 is that scholarship limits no longer exist for opt-in programs — what exists is a roster cap plus a $20.5M-and-rising revenue-share pool. The total athlete-spend ceiling moved from "85 footballs × tuition" to "105 footballs × tuition + share of $21.3M cash." That is a structural change in how athletic departments budget, not a tweak.

2. The Football Roster Cap Of 105 — In Detail

2a. The number itself

FBS football: 105. Up from 85 scholarships, down from the 120-130 roster footprint most Power Four programs carried. The 105 includes walk-ons. That is the part most fans miss — a school that previously rostered 130 with 85 on aid must now cut 25 bodies, but it can also scholarship all 105 remaining bodies if it can afford the tuition.

2b. Designated Student-Athletes (the grandfathering carve-out)

The original settlement draft had no grandfathering and Judge Wilken rejected it in April 2025, forcing the parties to amend. The fix is the Designated Student-Athlete (DSA) category:

• Athletes who were on a 2024-25 roster and would have been cut by the new cap → DSA-eligible
• Incoming recruits (including 2025 HS grads) who had a roster-spot commitment for 2025-26 and were displaced → DSA-eligible
• DSAs do not count toward the 105 cap at any school for the remainder of their eligibility

The practical result for 2026-27: most SEC and Big Ten football rosters are still carrying 115-125 bodies, with the 10-20 over 105 being DSAs who will age out by 2028 or 2029.

2c. The new partial-scholarship math

Pre-House, a football coach allocated 85 binary full rides. Post-House, a coach allocates up to 105 scholarships of any size. Ohio State and Texas are reportedly running all 105 on full aid.

Mid-tier Big 12 and ACC programs are running roughly 88-95 on full plus 10-17 partials in the 25-50% range. Group of Five programs are using the new flexibility to spread aid wider rather than deeper.

3. Roster Caps By Sport (The Full 2026-27 Table)

3a. Sports where the cap went UP

3b. Sports where the cap went DOWN

3c. The basketball sports

Men's basketball moved from 13 scholarships, ~15 roster to a 15 roster cap with 15 possible scholarships. Women's basketball went from 15 scholarships, ~15 roster to a 15 roster cap with 15 possible scholarships. Functionally a wash on the men's side, a flexibility win on the women's side.

4. The Money Side — Why Scholarships Are Now Cheaper Than Rev-Share

4a. The $20.5M → $21.3M escalator

The House revenue-share pool started at $20.5M per school for 2025-26 and escalates 4% per year for the 10-year settlement term. That puts 2026-27 at roughly $21.3M, 2027-28 at $22.2M, 2028-29 at $23.1M. The pool is re-evaluated every three years based on the defendant conferences' combined media-rights revenue.

4b. Scholarships do NOT count against the rev-share cap — but new scholarships do

This is the 2026-27 budgeting twist that flipped athletic-department planning. The net new scholarship cost above the 2024-25 baseline can be credited against the rev-share cap up to roughly $2.5M per school per year. So a football program that added 20 new scholarships at $75K each = $1.5M can apply $1.5M of that as a rev-share credit, freeing $1.5M of the $21.3M pool for direct payments.

4c. Where the dollars actually land for football

In practice, a typical SEC opt-in school's 2026-27 football budget for athlete-direct spend looks like: ~$16M revenue share (75% of the cap), ~$8M scholarship cost for 105 full rides at $75K average, ~$5-15M in third-party NIL (booster collectives + brand deals), totaling $29-39M against ~105 athletes.

That works out to roughly $275K-$370K of value per football player per year at the top end.

5. Who Opted In, Who Didn't — And What It Means For Recruits

5a. The defendant conferences (all in)

The four defendant conferences — SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 — are mandatory opt-ins. Every member program is operating under the new roster + scholarship rules for 2026-27. Notre Dame (Independent in football) is in.

5b. The Group of Five and below (opt-in by choice)

The American, Mountain West, Sun Belt, MAC, and Conference USA are conference-by-conference and school-by-school. Most are partially opting in — taking the roster-cap flexibility but pooling a smaller rev-share number (commonly $2-5M rather than the full $21.3M).

The Ivy League, Patriot League, and most non-scholarship FCS programs have declined to opt in and are still operating under legacy scholarship limits.

5c. What recruits need to read on a scholarship offer in 2026-27

A 2027 high school recruit evaluating an FBS offer should ask three questions the pre-House generation never had to ask: (1) "Is this school opted in to House?" (2) "Am I one of the 105, or am I a preferred walk-on who will count against the cap?" (3) "Is the partial scholarship paired with a separate revenue-share contract, and what is the dollar amount?" Coaches who dodge any of those three should be treated as red flags.

6. The Three Open Fights That Will Reshape 2026-27 Mid-Season

6a. Title IX challenges

Multiple Title IX lawsuits filed in late 2025 and early 2026 argue that the rev-share pool's allocation — most schools are pushing 75%+ to football and men's basketball — violates proportional benefits requirements. Department of Education guidance issued in January 2026 under the new administration was withdrawn in April 2026, leaving the question in active litigation.

A 2026-27 mid-season injunction is possible.

6b. The College Sports Commission enforcement

The College Sports Commission (CSC) — the new enforcement body created by the settlement, jointly funded by the four defendant conferences — went live in July 2025. It runs NIL Go (a clearinghouse that vets every third-party NIL deal over $600 for "fair market value") and assesses penalties up to loss of postseason eligibility for cap-circumvention.

The CSC issued its first public penalty against a Big 12 football program in February 2026 for routing $1.2M of cap money through a booster-funded "marketing fee."

6c. Employment status (the big one)

Johnson v. NCAA in the Third Circuit and the Dartmouth NLRB unionization case are both pending resolution. A ruling that D1 athletes are employees would blow up the rev-share structure entirely and force a collective bargaining agreement.

Most athletic directors Sportico has surveyed expect that ruling within the next 18 months — which makes the 2026-27 scholarship framework a transitional rather than permanent state.

FAQ

Q1: Can a school still recruit a walk-on under the new rules? Yes, but the walk-on counts against the 105 cap. That fundamentally changes the calculus — pre-House, an FBS coach could roster 45 walk-ons with no scholarship cost. Post-House, every walk-on takes a roster slot a scholarship player could fill.

Most Power Four programs have cut their walk-on count from 35-45 down to 5-10 for 2026-27.

Q2: What happens to a Designated Student-Athlete if they transfer? The DSA exemption travels with the athlete — they remain off the receiving school's roster-cap math through the end of their eligibility, regardless of how many transfers they make. This created an unexpected portal arbitrage: DSAs are now premium portal assets because they are a free roster spot.

Q3: Do partial scholarships count as one roster spot or as a fraction? One spot. The roster cap is a headcount, not an equivalency. A player on a 10% scholarship uses the same one slot as a player on a full ride. This is why baseball programs are now offering 34 partial scholarships instead of 11.7 equivalencies spread across 27 counters — same cost-per-athlete flexibility, simpler math.

Q4: Are international athletes affected differently? Not by the roster or scholarship rules, but the rev-share contracts for international athletes on F-1 visas have immigration complications (paid athletic activity outside permitted work categories). Most schools are deferring international-athlete rev-share into a trust paid post-graduation or routing it through third-party NIL structures.

The State Department has not issued definitive guidance as of June 2026.

Q5: What about FCS, Division II, and Division III? FCS scholarship limits (63 equivalencies) still apply at non-opt-in schools — which is most of the subdivision. Division II (full equivalencies) and Division III (no athletic scholarships) are not part of House and operate under legacy rules.

The opt-in question for FCS is mostly theoretical because the $21.3M rev-share pool is well beyond any FCS athletic-department budget.

Bottom Line

For 2026-27, treat the phrase "NCAA scholarship limits" as historical vocabulary at every opt-in Division I school. The operational rules are now: a 105-football roster cap, 15-basketball roster cap, 34-baseball roster cap, 25-softball roster cap, plus parallel caps for 18 other sports — and unlimited scholarship distribution inside those caps.

Pair that with a $21.3M direct-revenue-share pool per school and DSA grandfathering that keeps 2024-25 rosters whole through the end of their eligibility. The system is more flexible, more expensive, more litigation-exposed, and more operator-skill-dependent than the 85-scholarship era it replaced.

Sources

1. **CBS Sports** — NCAA removes scholarship limits, aligns with House settlement
2. **NCAA.org** — DI Board of Directors formally adopts changes to roster limits (June 23, 2025)
3. **College Sports Commission** — Roster Limits reference
4. **Sportico** — House Settlement Roster Limit Revisions Could Save NCAA's Big Deal
5. **On3** — House v. NCAA: Attorneys file new brief with grandfathering provisions
6. **ESPN** — Attorneys handling NCAA settlement propose do-over on roster limits
7. **Sports Illustrated** — House Settlement Draws Closer After Amended Roster Limits Proposal
8. **Business of College Sports** — New Roster Limits Set by House v. NCAA
9. **Yahoo Sports** — With NCAA-House settlement in balance, new roster limit proposal emerges
10. **NCAA Implementation Q&A** — Phase Three Institutional Settlement (PDF)