The NCAA Division I Council voted on Monday to allow schools to provide spring-sport student-athletes an additional year of eligibility due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19.

Earlier this month, the NCAA elected to cancel the men’s and women’s March Madness tournaments due to the outbreak of the virus. This eventually led the NCAA to cancel spring championships with individual conferences suspending play for sports as well.

Spring sports include baseball, golf, lacrosse, softball, tennis and outdoor track and field, among others.

The NCAA also adjusted financial aid rules to allow spring teams to carry more members on scholarship to account for incoming recruits and student-athletes who had been in their last year of eligibility who decide to stay.

The vote also also provided schools with the flexibility to give students the opportunity to return for the 2020-21 season without requiring that athletics aid be provided at the same level awarded for 2019-20. This flexibility applies only to student-athletes who would have exhausted eligibility in 2019-20.

However, the NCAA declined to extend eligibility for winter student-athletes in sports where all or much of their regular seasons were completed. Those sports include basketball, gymnastics, ice hockey, swimming and driving, wrestling and others.

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