Who Wins – and Who Loses – Under the NCAA’s 5‑in‑5 Plan
OPENING STATEMENTS
A couple of weeks ago in this space, we called the NCAA’s proposed 5‑in‑5 rule what it is: a restraint of trade dressed up as modernization in a system courts have already recognized as commercial. I haven’t changed my mind about that. But given the support that seems to be growing for it – and how many emails we’re getting that boil down to, “What does this mean for my eligibility?” – this week I want to focus on a different question: if 5‑in‑5 passes, who does it help and who does it hurt?
Right now, the Division I Board has directed the DI Cabinet to advance an age‑based eligibility model that would give athletes up to five years of eligibility, beginning the academic year after they turn 19 or graduate high school, whichever comes first. There’s not expected to be a vote during today’s Cabinet call, but momentum seems behind a June 22 decision that could lock this structure. On paper, it looks simple: five years to play up to five seasons, no traditional redshirts, no discretionary sixth‑year waivers, with only narrow carve‑outs for military service, religious missions, and pregnancy.
There are people who will genuinely benefit from this, and others for whom it won’t. Here’s a look:
Who it will benefit
Really good athletes who can avoid injuries
Those who aren’t quite on the pro tier will be highly prioritized, for longer, and could earn an extra year of playing time and NIL - if they stay healthy.
Head coaches at the highest-tier programs
They will be able to turn secondary programs, regardless of sport, into even more of a feeder system, with experienced transfers playing a bigger role in roster development.
Compliance offices and administrators
It’s not as if they’ve been overly supportive of student-athletes seeking waivers, and now it’s one less thing for them to deal with.
The NCAA’s central office
The association reclaims control by trading away individualized equity in favor of “order,” reducing the volume of hard cases that reveal just how commercial and inconsistent the old amateurism‑based waiver system has become.
Who won’t it benefit
Older and non‑traditional students
JUCO transfers, international athletes, late bloomers and other students who start college later in life may discover that a large portion of their five‑year window is already gone before they reach Division I.
Injured athletes
Especially those, who experience significant injuries with recovery that strips them of most/all of two seasons. There’s no recourse for another year.
The hockey ecosystem
The sport will undergo a significant change, as it has been allowed to use delayed enrollments, through juniors and post-grad years, after finishing high school before heading to college, some for as many as three years.
High school athletes outside the top tier
For true five‑stars and blue‑chip recruits, 5‑in‑5 probably doesn’t change much; coaches will still clear space for players who can transform a program overnight. The real impact is in the middle: when a coach can keep a known starter for a fifth year, the easiest way to “find” a scholarship is to pass on or delay an offer to a solid but not transcendent high school prospect, making it harder for late bloomers and bubble kids to break into Division I.
The 2026 class caught in between
The class just ahead of them enjoyed COVID‑era extensions and extra seasons that effectively stretched the old four‑in‑five model, while the class of 2026 won’t be fully grandfathered into either regime. They are competing for roster spots with older athletes who were allowed to linger longer and, at the same time, staring down a new age‑based clock that will define their own limits going forward – a classic “squeezed in the middle” class with less flexibility than those who came before or after.
Second-tier HS athletes
Regardless of program, this is where roster caps and 5 years of eligibility will be conflict - and it may ultimately be the biggest impact of this new landscape. If student-athletes can decide late in the cycle to return for a fifth year, it will come at the expense of someone else. That’s likely going to yield a lot of de-committed HS seniors every spring. With either nowhere to turn - or trickling down to another program that pushes someone else out. This is where chaos could ensue.
The rule may not be final yet. But with eligibility that is finite, it’s going to create a new class of winners and losers.
EXHIBIT A
The long and expensive bet that Congress would rescue college sports might finally be running out of road. The SCORE Act was pulled from the House schedule again after the Congressional Black Caucus and NAACP signaled they are not interested in rewarding athletic powers whose flagship schools stay quiet while their states chip away at Black voting rights. That does not look like a coalition eager to give the NCAA antitrust protections or sign off on bills that constrain athlete rights. Instead, it reinforces a different reality: federal help may not be coming, and that forces conferences to actually work together on real solutions - something their track record of brinkmanship, breakaway threats, and stalemates does not inspire much confidence in. For the majority of athletes and fans outside the sport’s top revenue tiers, that means the future of college sports is being decided by leaders who have shown they would rather win the next power play than fix the system they already broke.
EXHIBIT B
Here’s the latest snapshot of how unserious this industry can be: Cal and Stanford playing an ACC Tournament baseball game about 2,700 miles from home in Charlotte, North Carolina. After just playing each other in California. Two Bay Area schools, located about 90 minutes apart, put their athletes on cross‑country flights for a single‑elimination conference game because of the scheduling driven by a realignment jigsaw puzzle. This is what “modernization” looks like for athletes who don’t play football: more miles, more missed class, more wear and tear, and more program expenses that can be used against them - while administrators insist this is still about education and opportunity.
ON THE DOCKET
In bold pen on my calendar this fall now is the Supreme Court adding Crowther v. Board of Regents to its October 2026 calendar, a case that will decide whether college employees, including coaches like former Georgia Tech women’s basketball coach MaChelle Joseph, can sue under Title IX for sex discrimination and retaliation. The Eleventh Circuit recently said no, breaking from at least eight other federal appeals courts that allow these claims. However the Court rules, it will reshape how gender equity gets enforced inside athletic departments at the exact moment non-revenue and women’s sports are already navigating the ripple effects of the evolution of college athletics.
FOOTNOTES
"... let (them) break away. I would turn it around and say we should break away from them. Let them go, but they have to go in all their sports and see how fun it is to play baseball and softball and track when it's just the 20 of you. … That's what I think we should do, but I'm one person, and you know that's probably a little more draconian, but that's how I feel about it. Let's quit talking about it, quit threatening, go do it. But if you're going to do it, you don't get to just do it in football and then keep all your other sports with us. No, take them all, see how fun it is."
Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard, in response to discussions from the Big Ten breaking away from other conferences
