Greg Sankey Offers Comments on Baseball Scholarships

As the Alabama Crimson Tide baseball team looks to turn a corner following a 30-plus win 2022 season, the scholarship question endures.

At the Division 1 level, the NCAA allows schools 11.7 baseball scholarships which can be split among 27 players at the most. For states without a lottery and with other disadvantages, this can present a financial disadvantage when it comes to competing on the baseball diamond.

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At the SEC Media Days this week in Atlanta, Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey sat down with TIDE 100.9's Ryan Fowler and touched on this talking point.

"You saw Auburn go to the World Series, Ole Miss win the national championship, Mississippi State, and those are three schools that identify the lack of in-state scholarships," Sankey said. "We have campuses without in-state scholarships that have the ability to provide some academic aid that others don't."

"I think there is a differential in how this number's administered," he added.

There's no forthcoming change coming to the current structure, however.

"We have walked into a conversation asking the 'why's of scholarship numbers and attachment to roster numbers, and is there a different way?," Sankey asked.

"No destination right now on that conversation, but I think there is an opportunity to look differently at how we administer financial aid... We have to work through consideration of the 'why's of what we've done and the impacts of what we might do, and there's an opportunity for some adjustment, I think."

Currently, the best teams can do is divide up different scholarship percentages among players to meet the limit; the minimum number for that is 25 percent. Alabama head coach Brad Bohannon has spoken on scholarships before. At one point, he said that college baseball isn't a level playing field.

Organizations such as the Alabama Grand Slammers exist to fundraise and provide support for the Crimson Tide baseball program.