Division I Council cuts transfer portal windows to 30 total days

The NCAA Division I Council voted Tuesday in favor of shortening the transfer portal windows for both football and basketball. The timeframes in which athletes could enter the transfer portal had already been trimmed once from 60 to 45 days. Tuesday's decision brought those windows down to a combined 30 days. Eliminating the spring window for football had been under consideration, but the Division I Council opted to keep it for players eyeing a transfer after the results of spring practices. Football players will have a 20-day window during the winter and a 10-day window in the spring. The dates for the 2024-25 offseason will be Dec. 9-28 and April 16-25. Athletes in the portal can commit to a new school at any time, not only when the portal is open for them to enter. The men's and women's basketball transfer portal will open for 30 days starting the day after the end of the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Athletes will still be given the opportunity to transfer for 30 days when their original school's head coach departs for any reason, starting the day the departure is announced. The timeline modifications should help athletic programs better navigate the offseason after the advent of the free one-time transfer coupled with name, image and likeness rights made for unprecedented amounts of player movement. More than 2,800 FBS scholarship players entered the transfer portal during 2023-24. The number of men's basketball players to hit the portal in 2024 was around 2,000, some estimates found. --Field Level Media