So What Does It Mean for Lacrosse?
Far an away the two most important elements of the settlement are that it sets aside more than a billion dollars in back-pay to athletes who missed out on the opportunity to benefit from their NIL rights and, going forward, it allows universities/athletic departments to directly compensate their athletes via sharing a percentage of revenue.
I have yet to speak to a lacrosse coach who’s told me that he or she expects either of those elements to be a consideration for his/her program going forward.
I’ll start with how this affects men’s lacrosse because I’m more confident in my opinions on that topic than on how it affects women’s lacrosse, and I think the impacts will be meaningfully different because of the percentage of women’s lacrosse teams that are in Power 4 athletic departments than men’s lacrosse teams.
1. Aside from backpay and future compensation, what else does the settlement contain?
The two highest profile elements are that it creates roster caps and removes scholarship limits for all sports. Those elements are related. It has been framed as “men’s lacrosse’s scholarship limit has been increased to 48” and, while that is technically true, the implication that programs will now offer 48 scholarships is tremendously misleading (more on that later).
One other important element of the settlement that lacrosse fans wouldn’t notice but could have some meaningful implications: every sport would be reclassified as an “equivalency” sport (vs. a “head count” sport), allowing for partial scholarships in other sports that previously were only able to offer full scholarships.
2. What matters more, the roster cap or the elimination of scholarship limits?
Probably the roster cap, which is set at 48 for men’s lacrosse.
But there are four mitigating factors. The first is that the COVID-elevated roster numbers were already organically adjusting lower for the 2025 and ’26 seasons. The second is that I’m told that ACC ADs and coaches had already had conversations about creating a roster limit for men’s lacrosse separate from the House settlement. Third is that, to my earlier point that I did not expect this proposal to be approved, I similarly don’t expect this roster cap plan to go into effect (or remain, in effect, for very long) because I don’t think it’ll withstand legal scrutiny when it is challenged in court. I interpret the creation of roster caps as a compromise among university presidents to protect them from themselves; i.e. one of their competitors prioritizing one sport and tipping off a spending race that compels others to follow suit. If that interpretation is shared by a judge like Wilken, then a plaintiff who’s damaged by not having the opportunity to compete as a result of being the 49th player on a team would have reasonable grounds to pursue damages.
And fourth, the roster cap may only be a consideration for programs that share revenue with athletes. From Dellenger’s story: “Those that are not defendants — schools and conferences in the Group of Five, FCS and non-football playing Division I programs — are bound by the roster limits, reporting system and enforcement mechanism only if they choose to share revenue with athletes. They can opt out of the new model if they decline to share revenue.”
That means that, in men’s lacrosse, this situation may only affect 11 programs: Duke, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, Syracuse, Utah and Virginia.
To further illustrate that point: one of the few other men’s lacrosse teams that plays FBS football and carries a roster larger than 48, Army coach Joe Alberici had already been informed by his administration on Saturday morning that, because the Black Knight department will not be opting into revenue sharing or NIL, they will likely not be subject to the roster cap.
However, a head coach at a non-football school told me on Tuesday that their conference commissioner informed their members on Monday that he expects a roster cap to go into place.
And that speaks to what another team administrator told me — that, given that caveat that this is a proposal and things could change, its conditions only apply to the the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Big XII. The other 28 conferences will have to convene, likely collectively (or in smaller groups) to make similar decisions for themselves.
One additional note: most coaches I spoke to were surprised that the men’s roster limit was 48; they expected it to be between 42 and 45. One coach wondered why men’s lacrosse was treated so “generously” compared to other men’s team sports and which “guardian angel” we had to thank. I think that’s worth it for me to follow up on.
3. So about those 36 new scholarships… How will this affect parity?
One note of clarification: my understanding is that, unlike the roster cap, the removal of scholarship limits is not dependent on opting into revenue sharing. Meaning that teams that do not share revenue with players could, for instance, offer 13.6 scholarships (one more than the current limit) while carrying a roster of, say, 55. This is pertinent for the tier of programs that prioritize lacrosse, carry a roster larger than 48 and don’t play Power 4 football (think Loyola and Denver).
To the heart of the matter, how new scholarships will affect parity is dependent on how programs are able to access those new scholarships. First, I will wager a lot of cash that no program will ever offer 48 full athletic-merit men’s lacrosse scholarships. I think any program doubling its offering to 25.2 is only slightly more likely. Realistically, I can imagine some of the best supported programs adding a scholarship here and there, on an incremental and as-needed basis. Essentially, a coach using 13ish as his new normal, then walking into his boss’s office in mid-September of 2026 (for example) saying, “We’ve gotten commitments from the No. 1, 4, 7 and 11th-ranked recruits in this class. If you let me stretch to 14 scholarships in 2031, I think I can get Nos. 3 and 8, as well.” And in that scenario, some ADs might say “No,” and others might say, “Sure, but you have to raise an additional $100,000 next year.”
In talking with ACC and Big Ten head coaches about the prospect of unlimited scholarships, they posited the notion of shifting donor contributions from their NIL collective into a fund that could be redirected toward additional scholarships. One consideration that administrators have brought up is the percentage of their current 12.6 scholarships that are currently paid for through endowments. There is a thought that any donations to new scholarships would have to come after all 12.6 scholarships are endowed. For context, the cost of endowing a scholarship ranges from about $750,000 to $1,500,000 depending on the cost of tuition, university imposed spending limits on endowment proceeds and other factors. So, if a program has, say, three scholarships endowed, the staff would theoretically have to raise an additional $13,500,000 before being able to offer a 13th scholarship.
Some programs have discussed a compromise, like 50% of new fundraising going to endowments, and 50% going immediately to new scholarships. But regardless of what the compromise is, it may yield one, two, perhaps three additional scholarships in the near term — and that is the optimistic consensus among bona fide national championship contenders. Other Big Ten and ACC coaches reframed their hope in a more grim light, saying they hoped they didn't lose scholarships.
To best illustrate my point, I expect the effects of the removal of scholarship limits to be far, far less significant than the NCAA Division I Council vote in July 2020 that allowed merit- and need-based aid to be combined for the first time — and IL didn’t even write an article about that! Almost no one paid attention to that story at the time. I think the effects of that haven’t been fully felt yet. For instance, one prominent program just received university-level approval to do so for the first time.
If the real consideration is “Multiply the cost of attendance by the number of players on my roster, then subtract the sum total that my team is actually paying,” then I think the ability to “stack” (that’s the term most coaches use to describe the practice) will exceed the sum total of additional merit-based scholarships, landscape-wide, by at least 500% in the short term (say, 2027 to 2030). And that rule is far more laterally equitable (meaning that non-Top 30 teams can benefit from it as much as the Top 10 teams do).
So, in summary, I don’t think the elimination of scholarship limits will affect parity very significantly, if at all.
4. What does this mean for NIL Collectives?
This is the topic that interests me most about this proposed settlement: I think it’s intended to substantially reduce the influence of NIL Collectives both by allowing universities/departments to compensate athletes directly, and by giving them more oversight of the Collectives, themselves. In the short term for lacrosse, I think this settlement could dry up the comparatively small NIL Collective market that currently as those dollars would presumably go back to the Athletic Departments to fund scholarships. In the intermediate term NIL might revert into its original intention: athletes using their fame to provide value to third parties as opposed to de facto pay-for-play.
5. What does this mean for Division II and Division III?
Nothing (directly). Indirectly, does the trickle-down effect of roster limits mean that some guys who might’ve been low-DI prospects now don’t have a home, and end up playing at a higher-end DII or DIII program? Perhaps, but there are too many other independent variables that I think will ever make that measurable.
6. Could this result in any programs being dropped?
That’s a concern that’s been voiced to me by prominent figures within the sport (though, by folks who’ve been a tad doomsday-ish previously).
If you accept the notion that this primarily impacts the 11 Power 4-football playing schools, then consider the security of those 11 programs first. I’d argue that lacrosse matters too much culturally — from a success and alumni standpoint — at at least five of the institutions, and the ones that may not fall into that category have all undergone multi-million dollar capital projects in the last decade. I’m a “never say never” person, but my hunch is that, if a program were to be dropped in the near term, it may be publicly explained as a result of the effects of the House settlement, but the reality is that program was probably going to be dropped regardless (not unlike how many inferred that Furman dropped men’s lacrosse as a result of COVID, but the reality is much different).
As for growth? The creation of new men’s DI programs? Here’s my thought on that:
Women’s Lacrosse
There are two primary reasons why the outcomes of this proposed settlement could be very different for women’s lacrosse than for men’s: the first is that there are 24 programs in departments that play Power 4 football (with more on the way) and, as a result of Title IX compliance, women’s lacrosse teams are less likely to be competing for dollars with football and men’s basketball than men’s lacrosse teams are.
As a result, like I said above, I’m far less confident in my opinions of how the roster cap (which is 38) and unlimited scholarships could impact parity and program growth than I am on the men’s side, but I intend to investigate and will report any findings.
If you have any questions or comments, leave them in the comments below and I’ll address them, or tweet at me @TerenceFoy.
Terry Foy
