Game On! It's Opening Day!
Scholarship StatsWhy are there fractions? Most NCAA varsity programs are equivalency sports which means awards can be split into partial scholarships in any proportion up to the maximum allowed. For example, an NCAA Division I school can allocate a number of partial athletic scholarships equivalent to 11.7 full scholarships in any proportion among, say, 25 baseball players.
Full scholarships are relatively rare in equivalency sports. An additional caveat is that there is a top limit of the number of athletes that can be awarded even a partial scholarship in an equivalency sport - this limit is referred to as the maximum number of counters. For NCAA I baseball teams the maximum number of counters allowed is 27.
You have 8 position players, a DH, 3 weekend starters, 3 bullpen pitchers = 15 players
That doesn't include starters for mid week games, extra relief pitchers, or any backup players.
I just think 11.7 is really low. I understand equivalency scholarships, I just don't know how they get that number. You're obviously having to rely a lot on walkons and a lot of guys aren't going to get more than half of their school paid for. Maybe it's because all of the best players go the MLB route?
I also get that baseball maybe isn't a big revenue sport for most schools, but really most college sports outside of football and occasionally basketball (and at NE, volleyball) don't turn a profit and they still have plenty of scholarships.
I also understand Title IX and the reasoning, but I don't know if that is what is in play here. The total NCAA scholarship allotment allowed for men's sports totals 296.9, for women's sports it totals 259.1 so it's not like it's exactly even anyway.