LSU baseball sweeps West Virginia in the Super Regional to secure a College World Series berth, as college sports face a pivotal shift with the \$2.8B NCAA revenue-sharing settlement raising questions about non-revenue sports.
LSU Advances, West Virginia Reflects While NCAA Sports Face a Major Shift
In the middle of June baseball madness and champagne-soaked celebrations, a bigger, more complex storm is brewing over college athletics, and no, it’s not about pitch counts or extra innings. But before we get to the business side of things, let’s talk ball.
LSU did what LSU does.
With the lights bright and the pressure on, the Tigers handled business in Baton Rouge, beating West Virginia 12–5 on Sunday to sweep the Super Regional and punch their ticket to the College World Series for the 20th time in program history. Not bad for a team already loaded with championship DNA. This will be LSU’s shot at an eighth national title, all since 1991. It’s not just a winning tradition, it’s a whole identity.
Jake Brown was electric. The dude crushed a home run and drove in four runs like he’d been doing it on this stage for years. Add in Steven Milam’s pair of doubles and another four RBIs, and the Tigers pretty much had this one handled from the second inning. That frame saw five LSU runs, starting with a two-out rally that exploded when Milam cleared the bases with a scorching double off WVU starter Jack Karstonas.
At 6–0 early, the energy inside Alex Box Stadium was already tipping toward “we’re Omaha bound,” and the Tigers never let up.
But while LSU moves on, let’s not ignore what West Virginia accomplished this season. Under first-year head coach Steve Sabins, the Mountaineers won a program-best 44 games. That’s not just a stat, that’s a statement. WVU was in its first-ever Super Regional, and yeah, it didn’t go their way, but it’s hard not to feel like something’s building in Morgantown. Sabins has that group fighting, and given the right pieces, you get the feeling they’ll be back.
Now, here’s where things get complicated: while LSU keeps swinging toward Omaha and WVU heads home, a seismic shift is rolling through college sports that’ll impact programs just like theirs and maybe even change the very structure of what we’ve come to know as “college athletics.”
The \$2.8 billion NCAA antitrust settlement, the one everyone’s been whispering (or loudly debating) about, is now a done deal. It’s being hailed as a historic turning point mainly because it opens the door for schools to officially share revenue with athletes. Like, real paychecks. And not just NIL deals from booster collectives or car dealerships.
Sounds like progress, right? In some ways, yeah. Especially if you’re a football or basketball player at a Power 5 school. Most projections say about 75% of that revenue-sharing money will head toward football. Understandably so football is the financial engine of most athletic departments.
But here’s the tough question no one seems to have a solid answer to: What happens to non-revenue sports?
Baseball despite its rabid fan bases and dramatic postseasons still doesn’t bring in the kind of cash that football does. Neither does wrestling. Or soccer. Or swimming, golf, tennis, or track and field. Those sports exist at most schools thanks to football’s surplus. If athletic departments are now required to carve out a bigger chunk of that revenue for player pay, something else may have to give.
West Virginia, for example, just had a banner season. But if budget shifts start to hit departments like theirs harder than the powerhouses with overflowing donor funds, what happens to that momentum? Do programs like WVU baseball become an endangered species in this new college sports economy?
That’s what ADs and university presidents are trying to figure out behind closed doors. The NCAA settlement may bring more fairness to athletes who generate billions, but it also introduces a brand-new set of existential questions for programs living outside the financial spotlight.
And here’s the irony. On the same weekend LSU was proving again why it’s a baseball blue blood and West Virginia was showing they belong in the same conversation, the very structure that made those moments possible is shifting underneath them.
So, while LSU heads to Omaha with champagne on their cleats and visions of title No. 8, and West Virginia licks their wounds with heads held high, the rest of college sports waits to see how this massive settlement ripples through every locker room, every roster, and every sport not named football or men’s hoops.
