In the age of revenue sharing, college athletic departments need to find more ways to raise money.

More games means more television revenue, and it seems we may be entering the era of more action on the courts and fields throughout the college landscape.

One of the first signs of that came Wednesday, when CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander reported the NCAA is expected to approve an expansion of the college basketball season from 31 to 32 games.  Norlander says the move is being done to encourage even more high-profile nonconference games.

The change would go into effect with the 2026-27 season for men and women after the Division I Council passes the measure, per the report.

There has been a 31-game maximum since 2006-07. Teams are permitted to schedule 28 or 29 predetermined games, plus an allowance for multi-team events (MTEs) — such as holiday tournaments — where two or three additional games could be played.

The length of the season (early November to early March) is not expected to change, so more MTEs are likely coming.

According to the report, programs will not be required to play 32 games but will merely have the option to do so.

Norlander speculates in his report that this may just be the beginning of a movement towards a 34 or 35 game regular season over the next 10 years.

The longer seasons become, the less likely it is that any team will match Indiana’s perfect 32-0 season in 1976.  That’s especially true if more challenging nonconference games become the norm.

Decision on NCAA Tournament expansion expected soon

The NCAA Tournament is likely to expand as well.

According to a report by ESPN’s Pete Thamel, the decision or whether to expand the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments for 2026 “is expected to come in the next few weeks.”

Thamel notes that the expansion would be to no more than 76 schools, which would be a maximum increase of eight new teams from the current format.  He added that the NCAA remains engaged in talks with its media partners over any potential changes.  Like the schedule expansion, the search for additional revenue is a factor.  Tournament revenues are allocated back to the schools.

The last expansion to the NCAA Tournament field came in 2011. At that point, the field expanded from 64 teams to 68 teams.

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Stanford right-handed pitcher Joey Volchko has entered the NCAA transfer portal with a “do not contact” tag, On3’s Pete Nakos has learned. He played the past two seasons for the Cardinal.

Volchko was a preseason second team All-American ahead of the 2025 season and showed flashes of why. He appeared made 15 starts this past year to post a 6.01 ERA with 56 strikeouts to 34 walks across 70.1 innings pitched.

As a freshman, Volchko appeared in 20 games with six starts. He had 53 strikeouts in only 42.2 innings pitched that year as he went 2-1 with a 5.70 ERA.

Prior to Stanford, Volchko played high school baseball at Redwood in Visalia, California. He was a first team member of the 2023 recruiting class according to Baseball America, which also ranked him as the No. 37 overall prospect in the country.

Additionally, Volchko is the No. 15 prospect on Baseball America’s 2026 MLB Draft board. That in mind, he should make a major impact wherever he ends up transferring to.

Stanford is coming off a 27-25 finish this past season and missed out on NCAA Tournament action. The Cardinal now face an uphill battle heading into next season without one of the best pitchers on their roster.

The Transfer Portal for NCAA Baseball

College baseball has two separate windows for players to enter the Transfer Portal. The main window is open now. That’s starting in late May, while the NCAA Tournament is underway, and it remains open for a total of 45 days. The other window that college baseball has is open for 15 days in December.

Unlike sports like football, baseball has unique challenges relating to scholarship distribution that coaches need to manage and could impact players as they transfer. With the house settlement passing, roster sizes are about to shrink.

NCAA Division I baseball teams currently get between 11 and 12 scholarships despite the rosters being more than double that size. It means players receive partial scholarships. That means that coaches need to find a way to balance those scholarships with players already on the roster and who they’re bringing in.

According to On3’s Transfer Portal College Baseball Tracker, 3,179 players have enters the portal so far. The On3 Transfer Portal Instagram account and Twitter account are excellent resources to stay up to date with the latest moves.

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said when it comes to recruiting in the age of NIL revenue sharing, Texas needs prospects to look at “long-term money” instead of “short-term money.”

On the 3rd & Longhorn podcast with former Longhorn football players Jeremy Hills, Derrick Johnson, Alex Okafor, Fozzy Whittaker and Rod Babers as well as host Nick Shuley, Sarkisian said prospects might need to be willing to take a little less money up front to become a Longhorn for the “opportunity to create more opportunities” once they’re at Texas.

“Maybe we get a guy for a little bit less than another school’s offering, especially in this day and age,” Sarkisian said, referring to the House vs. NCAA settlement, which caps NIL revenue sharing between schools and their student-athletes at $20.5 million beginning July 1. “That’s gotta happen, because every Power Four school’s got, at minimum, the same amount of money [$20.5 million].

“So, if we’re trying to assemble a group of talented people, well, every talented person is going to require some money. If I don’t have as many talented people, I’m going to have more money to offer Johnny.

“Well, Johnny has to see the forest through the trees a little bit and say, ‘This is short-term money. I want to look at more of the long-term money. And Texas is going to provide me an opportunity to create more opportunities, whether it’s on the field, off the field, degree, NIL, brand-building, player development opportunity in the NFL.

“What does that look like for me? I’ve got a lot more lanes  to go achieve that [at Texas] than just this spot over here that’s got one avenue.’

“We’ve got a lot of avenues for guys to come here and be really successful. So there’s a lot to it. But like I said, I think we have the best product in the US. I don’t think there’s another school that can say that. And, oh, by the way, Forbes magazine last year, wrote [Texas and Rice are] the new Ivy League.

“Name another school who’s getting compared to Harvard, Yale and Princeton, but on the flip side, is getting compared to Georgia, Ohio State and Alabama on the football field?”

Sarkisian gave a list of things Texas can uniquely offer a recruit in addition to NIL money, including back-to-back College Football Playoff semifinal appearances; having the most players selected in the NFL Draft the last two years (23), including six D-linemen and five running backs; reaching the SEC title game in Year 1 in the league; as well as three straight top-five recruiting classes, including the top-ranked class in 2025.

In a world where many questions regarding collegiate student-athlete compensation have been answered, even greater concerns are looming.

On Monday, Texas A&M Director of Athletics Trev Alberts spoke to the media regarding Texas A&M’s future financial plan in the wake of the NCAA v. House settlement.

While the mysteries of athlete compensation have been solved, it is far from over, as the NCAA is still having to deal with a number of lawsuits, and NIL regulation is still a massive concern to athletic directors and coaches across the country. With NCAA president Charlie Baker pushing Congress for a limited antitrust exemption to protect college sports from a slew of lawsuits, Alberts offered a differing opinion.

“We don’t need broad antitrust exemptions,” the Aggie AD said. “We need a skinny NIL bill that will basically do the foundations of what we need to be able to not live in a litigious environment every day, where we’re playing defense. We need to be playing offense.”

Alberts is correct in acknowledging that college sports need reformation in the form of NIL legislation, but with lawsuits piling up and the future of college athletics becoming more unstable with each passing day, is an antitrust exemption needed in order to achieve litigation-free player compensation AND competitive balance?

The reason the House settlement came around is that the NCAA couldn’t handle getting sued and losing lawsuits forever.

Alston v. NCAA, Carter v. NCAA, Hubbard v. NCAA, etc. These were almost all losing battles, and every dollar that the NCAA has to spend on legal fees is a dollar not being directly invested into collegiate sports. Despite the efforts to repair damages with this settlement, it is far from perfect. A large downside of this settlement, as it was explicitly said by Judge Claudia Wilken, is that it does not protect the NCAA from future lawsuits.

Aside from the Title IX lawsuits that are already on the table in just the first few weeks, there are a few more aspects of the settlement that people could challenge in court:

1. “Anti-competitive” nature of having a salary cap
2. NIL Go clearinghouse process and restrictions

This raises the question of how do we avoid these exhausting lawsuits while also ensuring competitive balance with NIL?

Right now, there seem to be two clear solutions:

1. The NCAA is granted Congressional protection (antitrust exemption)
2. The NCAA and its athletes come to a collective bargaining agreement (CBA)

Let’s break down what each of those pathways would entail.

Limited Antitrust Exemption
A limited antitrust exemption granted by Congress would allow the NCAA to operate in a capacity that shields it from lawsuits. An antitrust exemption would likely allow the NCAA to have ultimate say when it comes to player compensation, NIL compensation, transfer portal regulations and more. It would also allow the NCAA to preserve the concept of “amateurism” and not claim athletes as employees, which would have its benefits.

While this kind of congressional protection could allow the NCAA to set and enforce uniform guidelines to stabilize college athletics without the fear of lawsuits, there are downsides. It could potentially allow the NCAA and its schools to not comply fully with Title IX. This antitrust exemption would also likely take away any and all ability for athletes to negotiate for fair compensation and allow for the NCAA to operate behind a veil with no obligation to be transparent and accountable for its actions.

Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA)
Collective bargaining through employment is often seen as a middle ground to antitrust exemption that allows for athletes to have greater bargaining power. The NBA and NFL both have collective bargaining that dictates how revenue is split between owners and players, scheduling, drug policies, player safety and more. It is not exactly apples to apples when comparing these professional leagues to college athletics because not every sport generates revenue. Plus, you’re talking about just 1,700 players that play the same sport the way that the NFL is. You’re talking about over 540,000 student athletes across more than 20 sports (both men’s and women’s). This CBA would be much more complicated than anything the professional sports leagues have seen.

However, if every athlete agrees on certain standards, you can distribute compensation fairly without a fear of lawsuits while also agreeing on a more stable middle ground in terms of NIL and transfer portal regulation that would stretch uniformly across every school in the league. There wouldn’t be a need for Congress to write new NIL laws that preempt state laws. The NCAA, with the help of athletes and other representatives, could agree on regulations that would be enforced by the NCAA and difficult to challenge in court because they would be a part of the CBA. Even though Deloitte’s NIL Go clearinghouse does some auditing and regulating now, the process and “fair market” evaluations are not necessarily protected from litigation. Also, it’s not certain that complete competitive balance would be achieved through this, as some schools may not be able to afford paying athletes as “employees” if they have to meet certain minimum wage standards. You’re already seeing Olympic sports get cut from many schools, but a CBA could have the potential to accelerate those deficits and prevent many collegiate athletes from participating in sports at all.

The question is, with the NCAA trying to avoid lawsuits while athletic directors and coaches are demanding clear, uniform and enforced NIL regulations… could a limited antitrust exemption or a CBA be the answer to all of this?

Either way, greater power would be granted to the NCAA (or some other entity) that would allow it to operate without fear of litigation.

It could be a good thing for college sports to have basic uniformity where everyone is happy with their compensation, as well as competitive balance.

However, can we trust the NCAA to operate efficiently, transparently and with the athletes’ best interest in mind?

They have had 119 years to prove that and have, thus far, failed.