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

The evolving landscape of college baseball is reshaped by recent NIL regulations and increased scholarships, which will affect recruitment and funding from July 1, 2025. Programs are now allowed to provide up to 34 scholarships and can directly pay athletes as independent contractors. Jonathan Perrin, a former player, highlights the SEC as a prime benefactor, boasting greater resources to attract top talent compared to mid-major programs that will struggle financially. This has intensified the competition among colleges, making it tougher for mid-majors to retain their players. The financial dynamics present new challenges, especially for the competitive structure of Power 4 schools and player development pathways.

By the Numbers

• 34 scholarships per program available post-July 2025 for full funding.
• Players at top programs can earn up to $250K through NIL, exceeding standard pro baseball bonuses.

State of Play

• SEC leads in NIL spending, creating disparities in recruitment.
• Mid-major programs face challenges retaining talent as players transfer to higher-paying schools.

What’s Next

As colleges adapt to these financial changes, it is likely that the competition for top talent will intensify, leading to further shifts in player development strategies and roster formation, particularly for mid-majors. Programs may increasingly prioritize financial sustainability to remain competitive.

Bottom Line

This new era of college baseball emphasizes a financial arms race in recruitment, where the ability to leverage resources will significantly affect a program’s success on the field and in attracting top talent.

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Good morning! Time to hit the sticks.

Video Games? Why ‘College Football 26’ means we’re really back

Over the last few days, The Athletic has paid me to play a video game, EA Sports’ “College Football 26.” It’s a great game, and seems like a vast improvement on last year’s re-debut. It was also strangely emotional. 

Before I get to my review, let’s start with the latter point: 

• For may college football fans around, say, 25-45, EA’s NCAA Football franchise was a ritual every year. In its first major run from 1997-2013, the game became a social phenomenon. Some of my fondest memories are staying up late with my best friends in high school playing the game.
  
  
• That run ended because of what we now know as an NIL issue, which has been somewhat sorted out in this new era of college football. Now, players are paid, and their real names are on the backs of their jerseys in the game. So long, QB #13. Hello, properly compensated LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier.
  
  
• The fact that this sequel game is here — and improved, by the way — hit me unexpectedly. This is really happening every year again, and a new generation of middle-school and high-school kids will hopefully have similar experiences. While I’m not chugging energy drinks at 1 a.m. while running roughshod over my friends with C.J. Spiller, I feel more connected as a college football fan again. Very cool. 

I asked The Athletic’s Chris Vannini, a reviewer and in-house expert on the game, why it’s important: 

“Video game culture is pop culture, and a lot of people got back into watching real college football through the video game. For any sport to survive and thrive in the future, it always needs a new generation of fans. This helps.”

Now, about the game: It has an obviously similar gameplay to last year’s game, with noticeable small improvements. Motions are smoothed a little bit. College coaches are now in the game. But I want to focus briefly on the new Road to Glory mode, inspired by Jason Kirk’s excellent review earlier this week, because I had a blast with it. Four things that happened: 

• I made my name Chris Blaze and decided to be a total jerk. 
• I started as a blue-chip recruit and immediately tanked myself down to a two-star. 
• I still told Brian Kelly I never wanted to play for LSU anyway (a lie) after he said I wouldn’t get an offer. 
• I committed to Tulane, but on Signing Day I faked picking the Green Wave hat (a thing you can actually do) and instead opted for Nebraska.
  

I am biding my time behind Dylan Raiola, but sad to report the game does not think Nebraska will be good. I plan to transfer four times, though. 

It’s a good game. Let’s keep moving:

News to Know

More NBA funny money
Chet Holmgren and the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder agreed to a five-year max extension yesterday that could be worth up to $250 million. It comes eight days after the franchise signed MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to a $285 million supermax extension, and Jalen Williams’ payday is coming soon, too. Next year is the last season before this team becomes prohibitively expensive, as our experts wrote. 

• Also in extension news last night: Devin Booker signed a two-year, $145 million max extension to stay in Phoenix. I’ll stay in any bad situation for $72 million a year. Booker is still just 28 and will have made over $520 million by the end of this deal, when he’ll be just 32. Excuse me while I fall over repeatedly.

It’s Sinner vs. Djokovic
Poor Ben Shelton. He bowed out in the Wimbledon quarterfinals yesterday against world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, which gives Shelton an unfortunate streak: The only two players to defeat him in Grand Slams this year are Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, who have combined to win the past six slams in all. Awaiting Sinner in the semifinal: Novak Djokovic, who outlasted the upstart Flavio Cobolli yesterday. Their rivalry is … eerie.

More news

• Paris Saint-Germain thrashed Real Madrid 4-0 in the Kylian Mbappe derby. It was surgical.
  
• Former NCAA wrestler and MMA fighter Ben Askren said he “died four times” before receiving a lung transplant.
  
• The Yankees designated DJ LeMahieu for assignment one day after benching him. They still owe LeMahieu a lot of money.
  
• A new report says the 2026 World Cup will be the “most climate polluting in history.” Gulp. More details here.
  
• Lionel Messi is back dominating MLS … all while a Saudi club makes a strong push for the legend. DealSheet has the scoop.
  
• The “NBA2K26” cover athletes are here: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Angel Reese and Carmelo Anthony. See the full cover here.

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Oddities: How did these cards get made?

Scores of trading cards are printed every year and shipped around the world. Some have value. Most don’t. The cards that earn status do so mostly through the feats of whatever player graces the front. 

Others are valuable for their mistakes. 

I could not stop cackling through this roundup of unflattering cards yesterday, inspired by a recent sale of a Bronny James card that accidentally has “LEAVE” printed across the front. Thus, Brooks Peck went and found the 17 “worst” cards to ever exist. 

I’d like to share the two that earned guffaws from yours truly:

Blake Griffin was past his prime at this point, but that didn’t mean Mosaic had to make him look like a disproportionate cartoon character. Why is head so big? Why did they pick this facial expression to blow up? Sorry, Blake, but this is hilarious. 

And then there’s Bill Pecota:

Fleer Baseball should be prosecuted for this. Hey Bill, here’s your card! It looks like you’re striking out! 

The card does, however, add to Pecota’s unique place in baseball lore, as the nine-year journeyman finished with a .249 career average and inspired the name of the projection model PECOTA, which projects player output every year. 

See all the cards here. I would like someone to print an unflattering card of me one day. OK, almost done:

What to Watch

Wimbledon: Sabalenka vs. Anisimova
8:30 a.m. ET on ESPN
The No. 1 seed takes on the last remaining American in this semifinal matchup. The other semi, Iga Świątek against Belinda Bencic, follows directly after. Another good morning of tennis. 

MLB: Mariners at Yankees
7:05 p.m. ET on MLB Network
Aaron Judge vs. The Big Dumper. Two good teams. Just watch it. 

Get tickets to games like these here.

Pulse Picks

I was floored by this feature on Jojo and Jacob Parker, the identical twins who could be first-round picks in next week’s MLB Draft. They couldn’t play catch with their dad, but Jop Parker got his sons here anyway. Make time for this. 

Sam Amick wrote a fascinating notebook about the scene in Los Angeles, where both the Lakers and Clippers have prioritized flexibility this offseason with the future in mind. The question is: Who ends up with the star at the end?

To hear the Astros talk about rookie star Cam Smith is to get secondhand goosebumps. He was special from his introduction to the team. 

Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Tim Graham’s story on the Bills’ uneasy political dance with Canada. Read it here. 

Most-read on the website yesterday: The story on Christian Horner’s shock firing yesterday, which had all of F1 talking.

(Top photo: Cover courtesy of EA Sports)

Many of the same teams and coaches who consistently won in college basketball before the Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) era — which began July 1, 2021 — have unsurprisingly continued to thrive in the NIL era. Think Mark Few at Gonzaga or Bill Self at Kansas. A handful of coaches have shown their ability to recruit and run elite programs regardless of circumstance.

But not all of them. 

The contrast in success between eras has been starker for some than for others. The NIL era has blunted some programs’ success or, in some cases, significantly diminished it. On the flip side, other coaches and programs have surged thanks to improved access to resources and a more level playing field.

Take the following data as an example. Gonzaga, Kansas and Duke — each of which posted a winning percentage of 80% or higher from the 2000-01 season through 2020-21 — stood apart from the rest of the sport during that stretch.

The chart below, sorted by winning percentage, shows that over a 20-year span, only four teams won 75% or more of their games. (Data courtesy of Stathead.)

That tide has turned in the NIL era. While we only have four seasons worth of data, 11 teams — nearly triple the rate of the pre-NIL era for the preceding two decades — have won 75% or more of their games during that time. Of those 11, four — Gonzaga, Drake, Saint Mary’s and Grand Canyon — hail from outside the major conference structure. 

Teams like Vermont, North Texas, VCU Charleston and UAB have all posted winning percentages above 70%. 

The sample is small and the landscape is continuously shifting, so it’s hard to draw sweeping conclusions about the NIL era and its impact on the sport. But it’s not so hard to at least glean a few things from the data above, and speculate about what it means in the present and what it portends for the future of college basketball.

Here are my takeaways. 

1. Cinderella is not dead

Everyone was ready to sound the alarm bells in March when — for the first time since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 32 teams in 1975 — every team in the Sweet 16 field was represented by a major conference. But reports of the death of Cinderella are far too premature.