Baseball America | Blog | Baseball America College Blog | NCAA, MLB In Serious Discussions To Fund Additional Scholarships

For years, the prospect of increasing college baseball's 11.7 scholarship limit has seemed like a pipe dream. Certainly, colleges and universities aren't going to start funding extra baseball scholarships anytime soon, but suddenly there is real momentum behind the notion that Major League Baseball might step in and pay for additional college baseball scholarships.

Dave Keilitz, executive director of the American Baseball Coaches Association, confirmed a CBSSports.com report that MLB is in discussions with the NCAA about forming a lasting financial partnership. Keilitz sits on a committee that also includes NCAA officials Dennis Poppe, the director of football and baseball operations, and Damani Leech plus former Division I baseball committee chairmen Ron Wellman, Larry Templeton and Tim Weiser. Keilitz said the college committee has been meeting with MLB and MLB Players Association officials for more than three years, but talks were slowed by the death of former NCAA president Myles Brand and the retirement of union chief Donald Fehr.

About three weeks ago, the college contingent met with MLB Executive VP Rob Manfred and his staff, plus MLBPA executive director Michael Weiner in New York. That meeting led Keilitz to believe the talks are really picking up steam.

"The meeting three weeks ago in New York was, I thought, a very productive one and a very good one," Keilitz said. "One reason I'm excited is Major League Baseball and the players association want to make this work.

"There's a lot of hurdles here, and one hurdle will be getting through the NCAA with some of the membership, because there's implications here with Title IX . . . There are a lot of things that have to be worked out. But I do think it's doable and hopefully it's going to happen this time around."

An MLB official said talks are in the "very early stages" but called them "very positive."

College baseball teams used to have 13 scholarships to spread out over their rosters before a 10 percent cut in 1991 reduced the number to 11.7. Just getting back to 13 scholarships would be a huge victory, but Keilitz said, "Personally, I'm hopeful it's more ambitious than that."

Not all college teams are fully funded, and a certain level of funding would likely be required in order to qualify for the extra MLB-funded scholarships, but those details are still being worked out. The Title IX implications remain a fly in the ointment, as well; if MLB funded extra scholarships for baseball, would universities then have to fund an equivalent number of scholarships for a women's sport?

Major League Baseball has a real interest in increasing the number of scholarships for college baseball, largely because many premier athletes choose to play fully funded sports like football or basketball rather than continue their baseball careers in college. Baseball has made an effort to grow the game amongst inner-city youth through the institution of its MLB Urban Youth Academies, and an increase in scholarships is a logical next step.

"If you've got a kid that's a great athlete, and money is a factor—which it is for many kids—if he's got an opportunity to play college football or college baseball, he's got to go play football because that's where his scholarship is," Keilitz said. "So we've lost a tremendous amount of athletes to football and basketball because of scholarship limitations."

MLB might be looking for more out of the partnership than simply reaping the long-term benefits of a stronger college game. For instance, MLB might want to be more involved with summer baseball, perhaps by having its own instructors coach elite players in one summer league, such as the Cape Cod League.

The CBS article speculated that MLB might also be looking to fund wood bats for Division I teams, but Keilitz said, "We've not talked about the bats."

Nothing is certain, and it figures to be at least a couple of years before any major changes are implemented—if they ever are—but for the first time in many years, there is reason for optimism that the scholarship limit could be raised.

"There's a lot of things that have to be worked out on this thing," Keilitz said. "But I'm really excited. If it doesn't work out, then I don't know what we do next. But the fact that I think there's a chance, is exciting. If this can be worked out, it may be the best thing that's happened to Division I baseball."

[...] Keilitz said the college committee has been meeting with MLB and MLB Players Association officials for more than three years, but talks were slowed by the …www.baseballamerica.com/…/ncaa-mlb-in-serious-discussions-… [...]

This Keiltiz guy has everyone bamboozled. Such a sunshine pumper when it comes to proposals that will never come to fruition. Meanwhile, under his reign as Executive Director of the ABCA the NCAA has absolutely steam-rolled over Division I college baseball: fewer scholarships, fewer games in the spring, fall games eliminated and fewer paid coaches. Im sure he wants to take credit for the increased overall interest in college baseball (new stadiums, increased attendance, tv coerage, etc) during his tenure but all of that is due solely to forward-thinking college baseball coaches and athletics departments. Unless someone wants to list off things Keilitz has done that has actually helped college baseball I will continue to believe this.

Posted by JJ Rice | May 7, 2012 at 8:13 am | Shortcut

You’re incorrect JJ. Dave doesn’t present himself as any kind of all-powerful voice in college baseball. He advocates for coaches. He was not ABCA president when scholarships were eliminated or the schedule was cut. He has fought those things, and successfully fought trimming the schedule back to 50-52 games just a couple of years ago. His biggest accomplishment was pushing the expansion from a 48-team NCAA tournament to 64 games, which is the biggest, best change in college baseball in the last 20 years. That’s a pretty damn strong accomplishment. Some of his other accomplishments are things everyday fans don’t see like streamlining the recruiting calendar, pushing for the transfer rule, trying to prepare coaches and programs for the APR fallout … and he doesn’t take credit for much of anything. Sorry to tell you but you have it all wrong on Dave Keilitz.

Posted by John Manuel | May 7, 2012 at 2:16 pm | Shortcut

John is 100 percent right. Dave has helped defeat proposals to reduce college baseball’s 56 games just about every single year for the last two decades. He is godsend for college baseball.

Posted by Aaron Fitt | May 7, 2012 at 2:21 pm | Shortcut

So one of his biggest accomplishments is preventing the loss of more games? Interesting how "it could be worse" is considered an accomplishment in this day and age. The expansion to 64 teams was only possible because it was a no brainer money-maker – a near automatic response to the explosion in million dollar stadiums being built and attendance records being shattered by programs across the country. So, nothing more than a pat on the back is deserved for picking up on that obvious trend and acting on it. Also, he may not have been executive director but he was a force with the ABCA and NCAA baseball committees when all the cuts were made. I guess 11.7 could be worse? "As Executive Director of the ABCA I stood up to the NCAA and prevented them from lowering' scholarships to 11.3 !! – so vote to renew my 6 figure salary now!" Even "everyday fans" like me know baseball has the worst scholarship to starting player ratio AND worst coach to player ratio of all Division I sports (of the ones people actually pay to watch).
I'm glad you mentioned the APR legislation. This resulted in fewer total players being given scholarships and fewer overall opportunities (baseball became the only significant sport to have limits on walk-on spots). I take it the people that wrote that legislation were never wallk-ons. The legislation did slow the rate of players transferring and, therefore, improved APR scores – as you might expect a rule that made "4 year to 4 year" transfers illegal would accomplish. The residual effects of this legislation has been disastrous for players – even an "everyday fan" knows this! How about the explosion in formerly scholar-shipped juniors and seniors being forced into walk-on status since their only recourse to a scholarship cut is to go play at a lower level – Division II, III or NAIA. In between their freshman and sophomore year they do have leverage as they could go to a JUCO and then re-emerge at another Division I school later. But once their sophomore year is completed they have zero leverage and way too many are being forced to come off the scholarship rolls. Another by-product of this legislation is an increase in "commit-and-cut" a procedure in which schools commit and/or sign a kid and then cut them before they get on campus. Since there are potential APR penalties for cutting too many scholarship players why not cut them before they get on campus when there is zero penalty (if they regress as a player or get injured between when they sign and school starts)? The attempt to legislate morality was a failure in terms of the real world BUT a great accomplishment on paper!
I know I'm a dumb "everyday fan" but this stuff is happening and it's getting worse each year. No one ever covers this and no one likes to talk about it but it's there. Do me a favor and take some time to investigate these trends and you won't believe what you find – its a disgrace.
But at least Division I baseball didn't get it's games cut to 52.

Posted by JJ Rice | May 7, 2012 at 3:16 pm | Shortcut

I’m surprised you would direct your ire at Dave for that and not the coaches who are doing the committing and cutting. And the NCAA expansion was not a no-brainer; it may seem that way now, but back then it felt like coaches thought it had no chance of passing, and when it did, they were the ones telling me how great a job Dave did. I didn’t know better; I was new on the job. I’ve heard coaches complain about Dave but it’s usually about the transfer rule. Look up your timeline on the ballparks—the ballpark boom came AFTER the expansion to 64 teams, when we went from eight postseason hosts to 16. We did a ballparks survey in 1998, and the top 12-15 were places like Hawaii, Tennessee, Ohio State—which all have been eclipsed by many other programs. You’re wrong on this again. I appreciate your depth of feeling and your information as well as the fact that you took the time to write. No one said you were dumb, but I will say again that to the best of my knowledge your frustrations are misplaced. No one with the ABCA or college baseball was going to keep baseball scholarships from being cut from 13 to 11.7 twenty years ago; that was an across the board cut for all men’s sports. If I didn’t know better I’d think your email was ghost-written by Ron Polk.

Posted by John Manuel | May 8, 2012 at 4:17 pm | Shortcut