In the wake of the NCAA v. Alston Supreme Court decision, colleges are now awarding lucrative coaching contracts versus straight compensation to student-athletes which challenges systematic efforts to restrict what would otherwise be free-market competition between coaches who recruit and sign them. It confirms something we already knew in college sports: Things have become as powerlusty as the “Holy Wars” today, where institutions engage in this never-ending arms race trying to sift through top coaching talent to get the best players or create fiery debates about what is humanly possible when it comes to achievement on and off the field.
The Rise of Coaching Salaries
Economists from West Virginia University (WVU) have found a surprising development in college sports. The salaries of top college football coaches have exploded over the last generation, dwarfing even the pay of most university presidents, according to a new study.
By 2006, a head football coach was paid the equivalent of about 14 full-time faculty members. By 2015, the difference had stretched to anywhere from more than 26 times the salary of academic faculty by some measures. That explosion in coaching compensation could not similarly be explained by an uptick of college football revenues alone, rather that immense catch-all amount relative to its time was the aggressive mark institutions needed to shoot for inorder remain competitive for top coaching talent.
The Impact on Recruiting
The direct correlation between higher salaries of head football coaches and the ability to recruit better players was illustrated in a study conducted by WVU. With the 247Sports ranking system, on average, the quality score of an incoming recruiting class increased by 77 points for every $1 million uptick in a coach’s new salary.
In other words, investing in high caliber coaches is not just a way to win more games but as an actual strategy for attracting some of the best student-athletes available. In a sense, the institutions that secure these head coaches to expensive deals are using them as a pawn to attract the most talented players to their program. Said ‘arms race’ in the coaching market has increasingly become a popular movement across the college sports world, where schools look to stockpile top coaching talent.
Borrowing the words of Brad Humphreys, a professor of economics at the WVU John Chambers College of Business and Economics who is now the lead author on this study, this non-price-based competition for athletes is an effectual response to the NCAA’s system limiting direct compensation to student-athletes. Meanwhile, coming up on a decade of the NCAA restricting its member schools from giving players cash for playing (but you can eat all the bagels and cream cheese that your heart desires) there are big ticket items like lavish facilities, expansive stadiums and now well-known head coaches.
Conclusion
The WVU study’s outcomes paint a complex picture of the college sports ecosystem where schools involved in an all-out ‘arms race’ to corral the top coaching talent to recruit the most talented student-athletes. The trend underscores the enduring problems that bedevil the NCAA as it tries to balance the conflicting interests of colleges, coaches and student-athletes. As college sports face an uncertain future, it will be important for both policymakers and higher education to address these problems sensitively, maintaining the overarching focus on student-athlete welfare.
