OMAHA, Neb. (AP) College World Series finalist Coastal Carolina is determined to stay in baseball with the big boys, despite the fact that many athletic programs outside of the power four conferences are predicted to lose their competitiveness once scholarship limits are lifted and revenue sharing starts on July 1.
Division I baseball rosters will be limited to 34 coming forward, and Coastal Carolina’s first-year athletic director Chance Miller told The Associated Press that all 34 players will be eligible for direct rev-share payments and full scholarships. According to Miller, he also thinks that within two years, the Chanticleers’ chances for name, image, and likeness earnings will be competitive with those of major league baseball teams.
The main sport in Coastal Carolina is baseball. The Chanticleers have participated in 21 NCAA Tournaments since 1991, earned their first national championship in any sport in 2016 with the CWS, and will enter the best-of-three finals against LSU on Saturday night riding a 26-game winning streak.
The Chanticleers’ return to Omaha is largely due to the encouragement of the highest level sports administration, according to coach Kevin Schnall.
In other words, they made it possible for us to appoint a top-tier coaching staff that would compete with any coaching staff across the nation, Schnall explained. They provide us all the tools we need to help our players reach their full potential as players. It’s also a true team effort.
Miller stated that without requesting extra institutional funding, the budget has been reorganized to include more funds for scholarships. According to him, donors account for a sizable amount of the revenue sharing for 2025–2026. One donor, who asked to remain unnamed, made a transformative gift. Last week, he claimed, a fundraiser dinner in Omaha raised $1 million.
This season, the cumulative third-party NIL deals earned by Coastal Carolina’s baseball players total almost $200,000; as retired coach Gary Gilmore pointed out, LSU has that much in just one player.
According to Miller, several power four institutions will exaggerate their NIL numbers for the upcoming year. This is due to the fact that many NIL deals were paid for in full rather than over time. After the House settlement was authorized on June 6, athletes and their agents wanted to avoid having to have those worth at least $600 vetted by the NIL clearinghouse.
According to Miller, we spoke with one of the collectives from a power four school that I know very well. They are currently spending $2.5 million on the baseball team, and they plan to spend $3 million the following year because they frontloaded a significant amount of NIL money from their collective. In the next year, they will fall to $500,000. That is a significant decline.
Like his predecessors, Miller’s goal is to maintain Coastal Carolina’s standing in the top college baseball league.
According to Matt Hogue, who resigned as athletic director last year to take a position as head of Coastal Carolina’s Center for Sports Broadcasting, the philosophy of our team, which dates back to Coach Gilmore’s early days in the late 1990s, was designed to reach Omaha. our financial investments, scheduling, and infrastructure. We have always considered the CWS to be the norm rather than the exception.
According to LSU coach Jay Johnson, Coastal Carolina is the only non-power league baseball club that can continue to contend for visits to Omaha in the current era of collegiate athletics.
Boise State football, Gonzaga basketball. “They are the ones that are sustainable for decades,” he remarked. I don’t find it surprising that we’re playing them. They will remain there for a very long period as long as coach Schnall is there.
