and it has been widely misreported on what the specific rule changes are.

TL/DR: There is no such thing as a scholarship limit any more. Every player with a roster spot can be on scholarship. "Headcount" scholarships no longer exist (like they used to in football, mens and women's basketball, w volleyball, and w tennis, and w gymnastics). Headcount sports used to guarantee a full ride scholarship for athletes in those sports. That will no longer be the case. Every school will be free to give full ride, partial scholarships, or no scholarship at all, to any or all athletes on the roster, regardless of sport (including football).

The basic scholarship limit rules are being revoked and replaced with a single simple rule that any athlete, regardless of sport, that has an official roster spot, can be given any amount of scholarship, up to the full cost of attendance. The only thing limiting the number of scholarships that a school can give in any sport is the cap on the number of players on the roster.

This is a double edged sword because the roster limits are going to shrink in many of the sports. Schools are going to lose the ability to have a bunch of walk-on athletes who serve as a practice squad or scout team. They'll have to fill these functions with what are likely going to be scholarship players on a smaller roster. For example, football currently has a cap of 120 players on the roster during the season and a current scholarship cap of 85. Under the new rules, the roster will be capped at 105 players, and all of them can be on some type of scholarship. Basically FBS teams are going to lose 15 practice/scout bodies. I'm not sure how much that will affect teams, if at all. You'll probably see more people who are 2nd or 3rd on the depth chart filling out scout/practice team positions during practice, and you may end up with more injuries to key players as a result. Maybe. We'll have to see how losing 15 non-scholarship bodies affects things.

In baseball, the current roster limit is 40. Baseball is currently allocated 11.7 scholarships on an equivalency basis. If the full cost of attendance for a school is $20,000, then the baseball team can give out $234,000 in scholarships ($11.7 X $20k), spread out among the rostered players. But only 32 of 40 rostered players can get any type of cut of the scholarship money. Under the new rules, the baseball roster limit will be cut back to 34, and any or all of them can get any type of scholarship help the school is willing to give (capped by the full cost of attendance number). Basically baseball coaches are going to lose 6 walk-on players from their roster under the new rules.

Basketball is largely unaffected. There are currently 15 roster spots and 13 scholarships available. The new rules allow 15 roster sports, giving the two old walk-ons under the current rules the opportunity to be given a scholarship.

Volleyball currently doesn't have an NCAA roster cap (for either gender). The women's scholarship limit is currently 12, and men's is 4.5 (on an equivalency basis like the baseball example above). Most conferences cap the number of players who can dress for a match at 15 for conference matches. The NCAA has the current 15 player cap for the NCAA tournament. The new rule is going to cap volleyball rosters for both genders at 18. It's not clear whether conferences and the NCAA will now allow all 18 to travel/dress out for matches, but that's something to keep an eye on. Volleyball is a clear winner - they get more scholarships and will likely have expanded rosters for the conference portion of the season and the NCAA tournament.

Softball is like volleyball. There is no current NCAA cap on roster size, but they're limited to 12 scholarships. Some conferences have caps on the number you can dress out (typically 20 or 21), but you can have 30 or 50 softball players on your roster right now if you wanted to. The new rule will have a roster cap of 25 (basically softball is getting 13 new scholarships).

No school is going to be required to give a full ride to anyone like they're required to now under the headcount sport rules. If Alabama decides they're going to only give tuition to all 105 players, they can do that. Why would they do that? Because if NIL picks up the rest of the cost, it gives the athletic department more money to fund into other sports. People who are talking about this are all pointing to the idea that schools will be dumping a lot more money into scholarships. Maybe that's true. But with NIL in the picture, it will give schools the flexibility in the old headcount sports (primarily football, but also basketball), to divert scholarship money to other sports or to other spending needs within the athletic department and allow NIL to pick up the difference. Under the current rule, if anyone in a headcount sport gets any scholarship help, the school has to give the full ride amount of aid.