Mazzoni: 9 facts you likely don’t know about college scholarships

There certainly is a lot of confusion when it comes to college baseball scholarships. Hopefully, these nine facts will help you understand the process a bit more.

1. College baseball teams usually carry a roster of 35 players, but are allowed to offer only 11.7 scholarships. So if you do the math, you can see that unlike higher-revenue sports (football and basketball), there is not enough money to support the full roster. This means you will generally have three types of players on a roster. Those getting a good bit of baseball money, say 50 percent and up; those with a bit of money 25 to 50 percent; and those with no baseball money. Money typically goes to pitchers, catchers and elite position players.

2. The majority of colleges package baseball players with baseball and academic dollars. So if a student is getting $10,000 in a business academic award and then the baseball coaches give him $10,000 for baseball, this student-athlete gets $20,000 a year in money that will never have to be paid back.