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AJ Dybantsa Makes Big Move on Wednesday to Expand His $4.1 Million NIL Portfolio originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

Although the next college basketball season feels like it’s years away from starting, BYU’s No. 1 overall recruit, AJ Dybantsa, has already proven he is a star.

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This past week, he helped lead a star-studded Team USA squad to a gold medal in the FIBA U19 World Cup in Switzerland, earning tournament MVP honors. On Wednesday, he inked a massive NIL deal with one of the most prestigious companies in sports memorabilia.

As announced on social media by Topps, which has been making iconic collectible sports cards since 1950, Dybantsa and the memorabilia giant have inked an NIL partnership.

“JUST IN: We’re excited to announce that we’ve signed BYU star AJ Dybantsa to an exclusive trading card & memorabilia deal Welcome to the family, AJ,” read the post.

For Dybantsa, in addition to his latest move, he now has NIL deals with major brands such as Nike, Fanatics and Red Bull. His $4.1 million NIL Valuation is also the fourth-highest among all college athletes according to On3, trailing only Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, Miami quarterback Carson Beck and Texas quarterback Arch Manning.

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It’s unclear how much this deal is worth, but it’s hard to imagine his valuation won’t see an increase in the near future.

As for BYU, there may not be a college basketball program with as much hype around them as the Cougars. They brought in a recruiting class that On3 ranks as the sixth-best in the country, complemented by a transfer portal class that ranks as the No. 32 class in the country.

With a major buy-in from boosters, the pressure will be on in Provo next season.

Related: Walter Clayton Jr. Turns Heads With Latest NBA Summer League Explosion

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 9, 2025, where it first appeared.

Image credit:
Jonathan Perrin (Zachary Lucy/Four Seam Images)

The phrase “a new era of college athletics” has gotten a lot of run over the past decade thanks to the advent of things like NIL and the transfer portal. As of July 1, 2025, fans of college athletics—especially baseball—find themselves in yet another new era. 

For college baseball, the results of the House v. NCAA settlement mean an increase to 34 scholarships for programs wanting to fully fund. Schools can also now provide “direct institutional support for talent acquisition,” allowing programs to pay athletes as independent contractors to play at their schools.

Jonathan Perrin, a former Oklahoma State and Brewers minor league righthander who now works as a certified financial planner, joined the latest episode of BA’s ‘From Phenom to the Farm’ podcast to discuss the winners and losers of this new phase of college baseball.

And he can easily point to one obvious winner. 

“The biggest winner (is) the SEC,” Perrin said. “It just means more down there. There are certainly levels to this in terms of levels to investment when it comes to NIL, and even, quite frankly, legislation at the state level … They have the most money, they have the most resources and I think you can see in the transfer portal with the types of players they’re getting, they are just offering numbers that schools in other conferences can’t offer.”

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On the opposite end, mid-major programs that lack resources of Power 4 schools—especially ones coming off highly-visible postseason runs like the recent displays from Murray State and UTSA—will struggle to keep a roster together. 

“It used to be you run to Omaha, and the coach gets a contract extension or he’s going somewhere else,” Perrin said. “Now, it’s the coach gets a contract extension or he’s going somewhere else, and your entire starting nine is thinking about the same thing.

“Murray State had a player just recently go in the portal, and go to Ole Miss—if you can’t beat them, pay them to come to your school.”

Mid-majors have naturally always had a tougher time building an Omaha contender than Vanderbilt or Tennessee, but that task has become even more difficult. Teams that have the financial resources and allure of a big conference mean the path to contending in the postseason for mid-majors will require a specific type of roster creation. 

“You gotta be old, and you’ve have to have played a lot of baseball,” Perrin said. “Junior college is going to be a huge component of that, where you’re able to get guys who have played a couple years of junior college baseball—they’ve played a lot of games.”

It’s easy to see benefits on the player side, as teams are no longer capped at finding a way to spread 11.7 scholarships across a roster. More scholarship availability, plus NIL dollars for top contributors, means less out-of-pocket school cost and more money being paid to baseball players than ever before. 

However, for Power 4 schools, that means players viewed as fringe roster types—like preferred walk-ons who would previously have found themselves on a P4 roster—could lose out in deference to teams choosing to allocate their resources to proven contributors at lower levels. College rosters have never been older, meaning there’s less opportunity for young players to slot into a power conference lineup. 

This also affects the draft decision for high school prospects. Initially at the onset of the NIL era, some draft-eligible players were asking for higher figures to sign because they had NIL leverage. But the increased age of Power 4 rosters could lead some players to opt for the clearer developmental path of pro ball. 

“It’s really hard for freshman right now to get playing time, especially at P4 schools,” Perrin said. “Agents and parents are starting to realize that, ‘Wait a second, if my end goal is to get to the big leagues, what is the best opportunity to make that happen?’”

Although the new rules may keep some players from reaching campus, it could keep older players around for another year. Draft-eligible juniors and sophomores landing in the 11-20 round range who teams are unlikely to break into their bonus pool for might actually lose money in the short run by opting for pro ball. 

“That $150,000 bonus is not what it used to be,” Perrin said. “There are a lot of kids in college baseball this year who are going to make more than that … Ff you’re getting $150K to go play for the Royals, and Arkansas or LSU are paying you $250K to stay here, I can’t speak for everybody, but I’m going back to school in that situation.” 

Even top Power 4 programs are going to feel the strain when it comes to tapping their finances to keep up with competitors. For top talent out of high school and in the portal, the NIL bill comes due yearly, and programs who want a yearly seat in Omaha will need top-tier facilities. 

“The demands on the recruiting base and the alumni donor base are going to be so much higher moving forward,” Perrin said.

It’ll take years for the ramifications of the July 1 changes to be fully understood, but in year one, the theme of this new era of college baseball is clear. 

“It’s going to very much be a financial arms race when it comes to being competitive,” Perrin said.

Fanatics and Fanatics Collectibles have announced an exclusive multi-year NIL deal with college basketball standout AJ Dybantsa, marking one of the company’s most significant partnerships to date.

The agreement, which takes effect immediately, focuses on trading cards and memorabilia, including autographs, game-used jerseys, inscriptions, and Dybalska’s presence in Fanatics brand campaigns.

To kick off the announcement, a cinematic video spot shows Dybantsa gazing out at Utah’s Wasatch Range, symbolizing his journey ahead.

Fanatics Collectibles confirmed Dybantsa will appear in several upcoming products, including Bowman U NOW, which highlights key moments in collegiate sports.

Dybantsa, a soon-to-be college freshman, was previously featured in Fanatics’ McDonald’s All-American Game collection during his high school career.

Image credit:
(Photo by Jay Biggerstaff/Getty Images)

In May 2020, with the world paused during a global pandemic and college baseball frozen in uncertainty, a group of coaches led by then-Michigan head coach and current Clemson skipper Erik Bakich saw opportunity in the stillness. 

They called it the New Baseball Model—a sweeping, data-backed plan to overhaul the sport’s calendar. They believed it would not only bolster the sport’s financial viability but also enhance player safety, academic balance and long-term sustainability.

At its core, the proposal—which has been reviewed by Baseball America—sought a four-week shift in the college season’s start date, moving Opening Day from early February to early March. That change, the proposal argued, would do more than just warm the weather. It would give cold-climate teams a chance to schedule regional games instead of shelling out thousands of dollars on southern travel they’d never recoup. It would also increase fan engagement by avoiding direct overlap with the college basketball postseason and extend the preseason ramp-up period, thereby reducing early-season pitching injuries, which had become a growing concern across the sport.

The plan drew wide interest, particularly from the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC. The SEC’s reaction was more divided, and the Pac-12 approached with caution. 

Ultimately, any perceived momentum never materialized. Shortly after the proposal began circulating, the NCAA froze all legislative activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The New Baseball Model was shelved. It was never formally revisited.

Now, more than five years later and in an unrecognizable college athletics landscape, those same core ideas are quietly resurfacing. 

As frustrations mount around the sport’s chaotic and compressed calendar, a growing number of Division I leaders are again calling for change. Baseball America spoke with 20 current head coaches across the country who, granted anonymity, outlined the changes they believe college baseball needs most. Some responses were lightly edited for clarity.

The Draft

No single event has had a bigger ripple effect on the college baseball calendar than the MLB Draft. And in the transfer portal era—where roster construction is equal parts evaluation and survival—its current placement has become a pain point for coaches across all levels.

Seventeen of the 20 Division I head coaches surveyed by Baseball America advocated for a shift in the draft’s timing, which since 2021 has landed in mid July, roughly two weeks after the transfer portal closes. That gap, coaches say, is a logistical choke point. It freezes roster planning at a time when scholarship decisions, fall practice rosters and financial aid agreements are due.

“The MLB Draft currently takes place in mid July, but roster and scholarship decisions for fall need to happen much earlier,” one prominent mid-major coach said. “Move the MLB Draft back to June, closer to the end of the College World Series, as it was pre-2021. Coaches would know by early summer which players are signing professionally and could plan fall rosters better and more confidently.”

Another Power 4 coach offered a more coordinated timeline: “I would like the draft to happen the weekend after Omaha with the portal closing two days after the draft. Doesn’t solve everything but would work together a little better.”

While coaches voiced their frustrations, most acknowledged the reality: The draft isn’t moving. 

Multiple MLB sources told Baseball America that the league has no plans to return to a June draft, and recent changes—shrinking to 20 rounds in 2021 and switching to a two-day event starting in 2025—suggest even more streamlining could come in future years. In short, MLB has modernized its developmental pipeline and is unlikely to reorient it around college baseball’s convenience.

Which is why, for many coaches, the more realistic solution isn’t changing the draft—it’s adjusting their own calendar to better fit around it.

“Moving the season back two weeks gets us closer to the draft, which is not changing anymore,” one high-major coach said. “MLB has overhauled the draft and MiLB, already contracting rounds, eliminating short-season leagues and affiliate teams, which makes sense on their part. College baseball is a great MLB farm system with over 50% of MLB rosters made up of former college players.”

Some coaches also floated a more symbolic fix: Align amateur baseball’s biggest event with the sport’s biggest professional milestone. 

“Do the draft in Omaha during the CWS,” one coach suggested. “The College World Series would be a couple weeks later than it is now anyway with a March 1 start.”

Still, symbolic or structural, every solution shared by coaches points back to the same underlying frustration: College baseball’s postseason and its most consequential roster decisions are fundamentally out of sync.

In the transfer portal era, when roster construction requires clarity more than ever, the current system feels like it was built for a different time. And increasingly, coaches are saying that time has passed.

The Portal

If there was consensus among coaches that the current transfer portal window doesn’t work, there was far less agreement about what should replace it.

This year, the portal opened for non-graduate transfers on June 2 and closed on July 1. Graduate transfers can enter at any time, and players whose programs experience a coaching change receive their own 30-day window regardless of the season. For everyone else, the parameters are fixed—and increasingly seen as flawed.

Two major issues surfaced in conversations with the 20 Division I head coaches who spoke with Baseball America. The first is timing. The portal opens during the postseason, creating a dynamic in which coaches must simultaneously prepare for elimination games and construct their next roster.

“You’re trying to scout your super regional opponent while hosting transfers on campus and figuring out NIL packages,” one coach said. “It’s not sustainable.”

The second issue is its disconnect from the draft. Because the draft occurs after the portal closes, teams often lose players to pro ball after they’ve already finalized transfer decisions—an unpredictable and often destabilizing sequence.

“It would give us a couple weeks after the draft for rosters to start to settle,” one coach said of a potential fix. 

Another was less diplomatic: “The portal ending before the draft is stupid.”

That idea—shifting the portal to open after the final out of the College World Series and extending it beyond the draft—was one of the most popular suggestions. Coaches argued that it would create a more logical progression by allowing programs to finish the season, navigate the draft and then fill roster holes.

Others pushed in the opposite direction. A group of high- and mid-major coaches advocated for a shorter window overall, believing that extending it post-draft only encourages reactive poaching.

“Shorten the portal window by two weeks,” one Power 4 coach said. “Have to find a school or sign a pro contract by July 15.”

Echoed a mid-major coach: “Extending the portal period beyond the draft brings zero benefit. It just allows people who do a bad job forecasting to steal other peoples’ players.”

The sentiment that a longer window rewards the opportunistic and penalizes the under-resourced was shared by several coaches from smaller programs. One admitted the system is flawed no matter how it’s drawn up.

“I think we’re exposed either way,” he said. “I guess the current model does protect the mid-major a little, but I’d leave the window open for a week or so after the draft so we could all know exactly what our needs are.”

The good news for coaches? Change might be on the way. Speaking at the State of College Baseball press conference in Omaha on June 12, NCAA senior vice president of championships Anthony Holman acknowledged that transfer window reform is under active discussion.

“There’s oversight committees for each sport, and they may establish their own [windows],” Holman said. “That probably makes the most sense.”

For now, though, the portal remains both a lifeline and a landmine—an indispensable tool built on an increasingly incoherent timeline.

“It’s not right in my opinion for players to flood the portal when the NCAA tournament is starting,” a mid-major coach said. “We all go through this mess in the summer to build/rebuild the rosters for what? Get to the postseason and have players leaving and coaches distracted with the portal?

“I don’t want to carry a tone of complaining, but it’s a mess.”

Postseason Format

Though only four coaches raised the topic unprompted, all were aligned in their support for expanding the NCAA Tournament field.

Their proposed fixes varied, but the vision was clear. One idea suggested shortening the regular season from 56 to 52 games in order to trade a week of regular season play for a longer, more inclusive postseason. In that model, the tournament would expand from 64 to 72 teams, with teams seeded 65–72 playing into the main field against seeds 57–64. Winners of those best-of-three series would then face the top eight national seeds in a newly-structured regional round. From there, 32 teams would remain and play a second best-of-three weekend at 16 sites, followed by the traditional super regionals and a trip to Omaha.

Beyond access, coaches argued that the structure makes financial sense. Hosting more early-round series at more campuses—especially in place of low-attendance midweek games late in the season—could generate more revenue and energy while reducing travel strain.

Still, enthusiasm hasn’t translated into momentum.

“You are asking if we should expand the field,” said Southland Conference commissioner and former Southeastern Louisiana head coach Jay Artigues on June 12 in Omaha, “there’s always discussion about that.”

Artigues, who spent years in the mid-major ranks, didn’t hesitate to voice his support.

“I love expanding it coming from a mid-major school,” he said. “If you see the success of the Murray States and some other mid-majors, it shows they can play with the big boys.”

But while the heart may say yes, the wallet—and the calendar—say no.

“I don’t know what the value proposition is to that,” Holman said. “We lose money on regionals. The proposition of not garnering additional revenue and just adding expenses, in this day’s economic landscape, doesn’t make a whole lot of business sense.”

By The Numbers

Below are breakdowns of how the coaches who spoke with Baseball America aligned on each topic.

Draft

Portal

Fall Portal Window