NCAA launches summer walk-on transfer portal in adjustment to House settlement ruling

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NCAA Track and Field: NCAA Championships — Jun 10, 2025; Eugene, OR, USA; A NCAA logo flag at the NCAA Track and Field Championships at Hayward Field. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Tuesday was the start of the revenue-sharing era in college athletics after the House v. NCAA settlement was passed on June 6. The biggest change has been schools paying student-athletes for the first time ever and a new NIL clearinghouse that will attempt to clean up direct pay-for-play. However, this settlement almost failed to pass due to roster limit designations. That caused the NCAA to adjust on the fly.

Judge Claudia Wilken wanted walk-ons or any other player on a roster to have their spot saved for the duration of their college eligibility. That meant that these collection of players were to be grandfathered in for this new era. Now NCAA member institutions must classify what players on their roster are a part of this group.

The NCAA has essentially created a walk-on waiver.

NEW: One-time transfer portal window:

The NCAA Committee on Legislative Relief announced it will issue a waiver to allow athletes that Division I programs place on the “Designated Student-Athlete” list to enter the transfer portal between July 7-Aug. 5.https://t.co/P0Ko4JAWK7 pic.twitter.com/m0KW3J49f7
— On3 (@On3sports) July 2, 2025

Schools now must tag the players receiving this waiver. Those that become a “Designated Student-Athlete (DSA)” would have been cut from the roster if the roster limits immediately went into play. Once on the DSA list, those student-athletes are eligible to transfer this summer without conditions, and “must be released from their contract prohibition(s)” with their current school. That transfer portal window opens on July 7 and will close on August 5.

Do not expect rosters to drastically change this summer across all sports, but there will be some more player movement heading into the 2025-26 school year. Players currently on scholarship will not be allowed to transfer in this window.

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Teams are shifting around how they roster-build moving forward by obeying the roster limits, but also bolstering roster depth with walk-ons who will remain in college athletics for the next couple of years.

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