Guest Article on Matt Brown's Extra points by a Carnegie Mellon marketing professor
It's a quick read, really interesting. The summary is:
- There's imperial evidence that college football has become more even/more parity driven in the post-NIL era
- This professor's paper explains that NIL has result in talent spread across more teams, lending "to a notable increase in the dispersion of talent"
- 3-star athletes - who aren't going to the NFL - are sacrificing post-graduation salary for (small) NIL gains
Excerpt (emphasis mine):
Three-star recruits face a stark reality: They have only an 8.4 percent probability of being drafted into the NFL. For these athletes, the decision to maximize immediate NIL income appears to come at the expense of their long-term educational stability. The research found that post-NIL, three-star recruits have exhibited behavior consistent with maximizing immediate NIL money, choosing colleges that are less selective, have lower SAT class averages and whose graduates earn a lower mid-career income.
These players are maximizing their college-level earnings while they can, opting for immediate NIL money over the long-term benefit of a high-quality education. For many, the financial security of a meaningful NIL deal now outweighs the delayed payoff of potentially better long-term earnings a prestigious degree might offer. Given that the median total NIL earnings for a Division I FBS player in 2024 were only $3,168, the immediate financial gain may not compensate for the documented loss in future lifetime earnings. The median income a decade after graduation is approximately 3 percent lower for the schools these three-star athletes are choosing post-NIL.
This finding is highly relevant because it validates one of the NCAA's original arguments in the O'Bannon case: Restricting compensation helped integrate athletics and academics for student-athletes. While five-star recruits face no negative academic trade-offs, the three-stars clearly do.
Anyways, I thought it was a fascinating piece and wanted to share.
Comments
For a 3 star football player, the education is worth more than the NIL.
Isn't this what we always thought?
True, but it's always nice to have some numbers to back it up.
NIL, etc has been the Wild, Wild West experiment. At some point the regulatory birds will swoop in (i think partially due to courts) and apply hopefully some sense to the chaos.
As an add-on, they Saban spoke during Gameday yesterday about the coach firings. He said a large challenge for coaches now is trying to focus players to give consistent effort weekly and how much harder it is due to the distractions.
(Realizing of course this coming from 'bama's former head coach....)
So the one thing that has always bothered me is the assumption that all theses players are actually getting an education. The are getting a degree, which is not the same.
The article said these players as a whole have lower scores and going to schools with easier admission. Maybe they are just being pushed through (we know this happens at UNC) and their best option really is football. Or they got a degree in something they didn't want because coaches pushed them into it because it had less of a time commitment. And now they don't know what to do except more football.
While the average is $3k, how many low 3* get monthly as a freshman? Being a senior start is probably worth a lot more and making $60k is probably better than 90% of people get right out of college.
Completely agree. Which is one of the reasons I reject the notion of "a scholarship is enough for these college kids"
I think the study compares students graduating after the NIL era to before. Presumably, the same things (ie; pushing kids through school) exist before.
It's unclear without data, but I would think there is more reason to push a senior 3* through as it's now viewed more like a job than education, but I can't confirm that.
I mean, it was pretty common when I was in school 15 years ago. I bet it's the same today.
It's like the Stanford marshmallow experiment for 20 year olds. Would you rather have $30K now or increase your salary by $5k a year more for the rest of your working life.
First off bar, this is fascinating thank you for this!
But in your first bullet, should it be empirical* evidence?
If not I deserve all of the ridicule!
I think this is what he meant...
"choosing colleges that are less selective, have lower SAT class averages and whose graduates earn a lower mid-career income"
Do they compare mid-career income of all graduates or just football players that don't go pro? I think there might be a significant difference between the two. We know that schools push football players into "easier" majors and I think this would greatly influence their post-school incomes. Does filtering for this reduce the disparity in incomes between schools?
How does it differentiate between players that
1. Just get a degree
2. Get a free masters degree
3. Get multiple masters degree
Does it also look at the difference in terms of financial impact of having ZERO debt to go into the workforce versus normal students who may now have $100K or more in loans to repay?
I would think that as long as they get the degree and have no debt they are better off then those having to repay student loans. If they get an advanced degree and parlay it into a better career beginning than even more so.
The research isn't comparing athletes to regular students. It's comparing athlete opportunity before and after NIL.
So in other words they cooked the numbers to show what they wanted.
No? The piece I linked in OP includes a link to the academic paper (I'm not sure what the right word is - study? Experiment? research? Maybe Guitarman can weigh in) - this isn't some journalist throwing data together; this is work published by a marketing professor at Carnegie Mellon. I don't think he has some ulterior motive here beyond working on something at the intersection of his career and personal interests.
You can argue that the findings are meaningless (like Shelton did quite reasonably, below), but these aren't 'cooked numbers'
"Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics." Sir Charles Dilke but made popular by Mark Twain.
Great read, thanks for the link bar.
Wonder what DCwilson would have to say about all this 🤣. He never had a very strong opinion here
"Baller Industrial Complex, VT needs to cheat until they're caught to get where we want, how come these kids can't use their unending decades of eligibility to play more school,..." semi-coherent but sadly relatable rage noises about VT's troubles winning a natty in anything
I think that about covers it
Bravo. main thing you left out was duplicate jersey numbers /s
DC has taken over Beard's account!
Someone please help that poor man!
While I disagreed with "this" take from him, I could understand how he was thinking when he posted stuff like this.
The pushback I would give here is that big-time college sports already devalues education to begin with, so it's hard to say what value players are getting from their degree compared to an average student.
For instance, the graduation rates for football and MBB have historically been well below the student body average. Instead confronting this head on, the NCAA just pretends the problem doesn't exist by manipulating the numbers. Primarily by removing all transfers out ("left eligibles") from the denominator but including "transfers in" in the numerator... which is just absurd given that (1) it artificially lowers the denominator and (2) it reinforces the idea that retention isn't important.
Even the ones that do graduate are funneled into easy majors and classes and have a harder time getting jobs and internships (+going to office hours) because of the time commitments of their sport. Granted, a lot of those kids wouldn't take advantage of it any way, but that's a complete indictment of the system that low-performing academic kids are brought in and treated like they are workers at a job.
There should be more guardrails in place, but the players also need to have the freedom to make decisions and live with the consequences of them. JMO.
Does this:
https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/research/gradrates/2023/2023D1RES_GSRTrends.pdf
compare the numbers any better?
The FGR does have its own issues and there's no foolproof way to compare graduation rates for the student body compared to athletes.
The problem is the NCAA goes too far in the other direction and disincludes all "left eligibles", i.e. players who left the school that were academically eligible. No effort is made to track what happens to these players, and the requirements for being eligible are pitifully low (AFAIK it's a sliding scale that goes as low as 1.8/1.9 GPA for sophomores/juniors).
Factor in the quality of education (there are teams who might have upwards of half the players major in "university studies" or something generic and easy, nothing that conflicts with team activities, etc.) You can succeed academically and athletically but it requires way more effort than it should if this was really an "amateur" sport.
Remembering back to my college days, I know that there is no way I could've handled my full workload and played football. I know it can and has been done, but to give 100% effort to football and also get a degree in a curriculum that matches your higher levels of academic capabilities would be a monumental undertaking. I would say the vast majority of contributing D1 football players academic efforts pale in comparison to their regular classmates. Given the landscape of things, I don't think it will be long before we see the academic requirements disappear altogether.
I worked 40 hours a week while taking my engineering load while not having access to any of their tutoring, meals, etc. That said, there aren't many football players taking engineering classes, and some of those players might put in more than 40 hours a week.
I am always impressed by the number of engineers in the non-revenue sports. Trying to muddle through is no joke and I can't imagine adding in the time commitment required of a high level sport. I had enough trouble with no sports and way less than a 40 hour week job for part of it.
Agree, I would have never gotten a L99 HC paladin in Diablo 2 if I had to play sports. Probably would have had to drink less too. I don't do well with swimming at 5 am when I'm still drunk from the night (morning technically) before.
that's when you have to learn to drink like a fish
pointsathead.gif
I actually found I did better in my classes while working than during my freshman year when I wasn't working. Working forced me to prioritize getting homework done in a hurry.
They say that if you want something done, give it to a busy person.
But the piece doesn't compare athletes to the average student; it compares athletes graduating pre-NIL to those graduating post-NIL
Completely agree.
I think NIL and the transfer portal have had legitimate impacts on parity, that could be sustained.
There are two elements of recent parity that will not: COVID eligibility, which has primarily benefitted smaller/mid tier programs, and lackluster QB play for the most talented teams. Even so, with a game manager QB, the most talented team in the country last year still won the national championship.