Here is a link to an article discussing the new NCAA rules affecting roster sizes and the number of athletic scholarships. The new rules will be effective beginning with the 2025-26 school year.
As I understand it, some colleges (but not the “Big 4” water polo schools) may opt out of the new rules if they elect not to share their athletic revenues with their athletes. This opt-out provision is unlikely to have much of an effect on college water polo because the schools that could opt out are unlikely to exceed the new roster limits (24 athletes for men’s water polo and 24 athletes for women’s water polo).
Since I don’t believe water polo schools have much revenue to share, is it true that if you opt out that you are limiting to 24 players on roster, however you can provide more scholarships (up to 24) if you have the funding?
Also, any idea on when this starts? It looks immediate. But what would happen to players on team with > 24 on roster? Are they forced to make cuts?
This def may have an impact on recruiting especially with large rosters at play.
Good questions, polofan. I could be mistaken but here are my thoughts:
The new rules are effective with the 2025-26 school year. I haven’t seen any discussions about a grace period but I won’t be surprised if there is one. Thankfully, the 2024-25 school year is the last year affected by the NCAA’s decision to give athletes a fifth year of eligibility if they participated in college athletics during the 2020-21 COVID-19 year. (As many as four starters on Stanford’s 2024 men’s water polo team will be playing in their 5th year.) Because this is the last year affected by the NCAA’s decision, some college water polo programs will lose more athletes after the 2024 season than they do after a normal season.
For the schools that could potentially opt out of the new limits on water polo rosters, it doesn’t matter if water polo isn’t a revenue-producing sport at that school. The relevant question is whether the school at large chooses to share revenues with its athletes. If the school shares revenues, it must comply with the roster-size limits.
I believe that the 24-person limit on roster sizes and the increase in the number of water polo scholarships go hand in hand. That is, a school can’t offer up to 24 water polo scholsrships, unless it adopts the roster-size limits.
Thank you. Hope this does not create more of the “haves and have nots”. Imagine privates could fund more scholarships that others for sure. Let’s hope its good for polo and no programs suffer or risk being cancelled. The 24 player roster issue is interesting as the definition of a “roster” seems to be murky. Most are taking 20-24 on travel teams now, would that be the roster? Or is the roster who is actually practicing with team?
As far as I know (I haven’t taken the NCAA test in 2 years) rosters are all athletes that have playing eligibility on the team.
Red shirts and Grey shirts are determined before the roster gets solidified, not including medical red shirts.
For example:
If a team practices with 24 eligible players, 3 red shirts and 1 grey shirt, they have a roster of 24. They can always opt to only take 15-18 players to tournament / games.
The ‘active’ roster is incredibly important for what players can and cannot do with regards to practices, hosting recruits, etc.
These new rules will create less haves and have nots and may grow the sport. UCLA has 31 athletes on their roster. Cal has 33 athletes on their roster. USC has 28 athletes on their roster.
That is 18 athletes that will likely go elsewhere to play and make the game more competitive
I’d argue that fewer roster spots at D1 hurts the growth of the game at the younger levels. Fewer kids playing in college could lead to fewer kids playing in high school and club.
While there is potential for the sport to grow and allow for more programs to compete with the Big 4, we may see the opposite. I think it is a big presumption that every Division 1 water polo program will automatically fund scholarships equal to the maximum roster limit. Over the years, several Division 1 programs did not even fund the 4.5 scholarships allowed. The other issue is that Title IX still applies, so for every men’s scholarship added for any sport, a women’s scholarship must be added. That effectively doubles the cost of every men’s water polo scholarship, and as we all know, the logistics of doing this is difficult for non-football sports at football schools. Women’s programs at places like Michigan and Indiana may be the biggest benefactors of this expansion.
I think you could see further stratification of the top 4 on the men’s side. Given their much larger athletic department budgets from being members of Power 5 conferences, they will have the most resources available to potentially fund full scholarships for the full roster. That may lead to a greater concentration of talent at those schools, with less top players available for other schools. Only time will tell.
I think you will also see more transfers, kids losing scholarships to make room for a kid who blows up at a lower tier team his freshmen or sophomore year. Paying full pop at Long Beach State for two years then getting a full ride to SC for your last two seasons, who would say no? On the flip side. You will have a kid who was a top recruit who underperforms and gets cut, does he stay at SC and pay full tuition or try to transfer to a cheaper school? This already happens more than we discus on here but it will only be amplified.
I believe if you are at Indiana or Michigan (women’s polo) in the Big 10, you can’t lose an athletic scholarship if you are of good standing within the school, athletic department, and outside community. USC and UCLA within MPSF, not sure same rules apply now they are Big 10 members. I doubt it…for now. I’m curious as to how that works now with the blurry lines.
sorry I should have been more clear. Most kids are not getting much scholarship money as freshmen, aid and “grants” you can lose. So if a top recruit gets a 1/8 or 1/4 scholarship to SC it is still cheaper to transfer than to stay but not play or practice the sport you love.
I don’t believe so. I may be wrong, but travel sizes are dictated based on the coaches decision with the exception of tournament / league restrictions. For example some league championships have max of 19 and NCAA champs is 18. Of course next year the max will be 24 for home and travel but will be less for some tournaments.
Correction - NCAA champs is 16 on a roster and the only league that has official travel restriction to date is MPSF with 18. All others can do what they want (up to 24 next year) with the exception of rules from the tournament they are attending.
thanks for bringing that to our attention. I always have enjoyed his interviews. Seems to be lots of uncertainty. They never got to the subject of international players. With roster limits, unlimited scholarships for the schools that can afford them, and what that may do when you include international players to the dynamic. Looking at most rosters with 4-5 international players i may be incorrectly assuming that most of those gusy are sucking up the 4.5 scholarships per team. I personally feel that those teams who get to increase their scholarships to say 8-9 will end up with 8-10 international players and leave domestic players to fight for 14 roster spots vs 20-24 right now. Yes, most schools will not be able to increase scholarships but the few that can will become totally untouchable. I hope I am wrong and this does not happen as it will decrease the available spots for US kids twofold. First reduction in roster spots second, more of the reduced spots going to international players.
That podcast with John Abdou was great. So if you’re a water polo player looking to play in college, sounds like you need to understand a water polo program’s financial viability even more.
Took a stab at putting together a table.
NOTE: This data comes from College Factual. I acknowledge my own imperfections in putting this together and the accuracy of the data (i.e. doesn’t tell the year it pulled the data, revenue data was incomplete so didn’t pull it out, LMU expense data includes sports they just cut). This is just a stab at what could be needed for “directional information”. Of course there are other data points that would be great to add if available out there - (i.e. revenues, is the Water Polo Program Endowed (Y/N))…