College basketball’s 2025 signing class could pass for a United Nations summit.
A year after 38 foreign players joined power-conference programs directly from overseas outfits, over 70 international prospects — and perhaps even 80 or more — are expected to be on their way to the high-major ranks once the final touches have been put on the game’s 2025-26 rosters.
From Australia and Africa to the Middle East and all over Europe, international talent is flooding into the sport like never before, buoyed by financial opportunities in a year of unprecedented player compensation.
“Outside of the NBA, Division I college basketball might be the second-most lucrative basketball job in the world,” Providence coach Kim English said. “With that, we get to tap into some pretty good talent.”
Providence is one of more than 15 high-majors welcoming at least two international newcomers, as Estonian guard Stefan Vaaks and Latvian big Peteris Pinnis join the Friars for the 2025-26 season.
But behind the 2025 boom in foreign imports looms uncertainty over whether it will ever be this attractive again for high-end international talent to take the plunge into the NCAA’s perpetually changing waters. The newly formed College Sports Commission intends to regulate third-party NIL deals in excess of $600 to ensure they meet a “valid business purpose.”
Agents, coaches and administrators are watching closely to see how the CSC ultimately defines “valid business purpose” and what it deems to be fair compensation on third-party deals. If the CSC establishes a precedent of strict enforcement, it could leave basketball programs to operate primarily within the confines of their revenue-sharing allotments when assembling rosters for 2026-27 and beyond.
The result could be diminished basketball budgets, not necessarily at schools like Providence, but certainly for schools that must bankroll FBS football rosters.
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