Game Theory Behind Early College Athlete Recruitment
Source: https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1131&context=etd
From the rise of American football as the first college sport in the late 1850s to the billion dollar industry of the NCAA in 2016, college sports of all kinds have become a staple of every college campus. On a campus to campus level, well-performing teams have the potential to bring in millions of dollars in revenue for schools along with the fame and recognition of being recognized by the only governing body of college sports in the entire United States: the NCAA. This creates an environment where there is a great deal of pressure placed on individual coaches to recruit the best athletes for their team. When considering that in a given year, there is always a limited supply of competitive athletes and a large population of coaches vying for those athletes, an economic evaluation can be performed on the recruitment process.
A given coach maximizes their chances of recruiting a given athlete when they do not have to compete with other coaches and the best way in which to obtain this situation is by reaching out to prospective athletes about recruitment possibilities earlier than other coaches. This however is detrimental to the athlete, the sport, and the coach. It is detrimental to the athlete because they have less time to fully think about what type of college they want to attend and are put in a spot to make a potentially life changing decision with limited knowledge. It is detrimental to the coach because they are also put in a situation where they have to make a binding decision based on incomplete information, in this case on the potential/ability of an athlete in their given sport given that athletes will have simply have less data on their abilities when recruited early. Finally, it is detrimental to the sport because athletes who are already recruited have less of a reason to play at their best after already being recruited, lowering the overall competitiveness of the sport, at least on the high school level. Due to these outcomes, the NCAA has put in legislation to discourage early recruitment, with the first sport receiving this legislation being lacrosse in April of 2017. Thus, there is the emergence of a Prisoner’s Dilemma game in which two competing coaches must decide on a recruiting strategy based on the perceived payoff of recruiting competitive athletes before the other coach while respecting the legislation, and the tradeoff of potentially being left with no competitive athletes to recruit and the guilt of disrespecting the legislation. An examination of three of these games based on the coaches respect for the legislation will be examined.
Case 1: Both coaches respect the legislation
Both coaches respect the legislation and will feel worse if they violate it than if they had not. They have the following payoffs:
4: Recruit early while the other coach does not recruit early
3: Do not recruit early while the other coach does not recruit early
2: Recruit early while the other coach also recruits early
1: Do not recruit early while the other coach recruits early
| Coach B | |||
| Recruit early | Do not recruit early | ||
| Coach A | Recruit early | 2,2 | 4,1 |
| Do not recruit early | 1,4 | 3,3 | |
In this setup, it is best if both coaches do not recruit early as the payoff will be 6. However, if one coach decides not to respect the legislation and recruits early, the other coach will have no choice but to also recruit early to get a payoff of 2 as opposed to a payoff of 1 if they were to continue not recruiting early. Thus the nash equilibrium is the scenario where both coaches recruit early and end up worse off than if they had both not recruited early.
Case 2: One of the coaches does not respect the legislation while the other does
Suppose that coach B does not respect the legislation and does not feel guilty for violating it. Coach B’s payoffs are now:
4: Recruit early while the other coach does not recruit early
3: Recruit early while the other coach also recruits early
2: Do not recruit early while the other coach does not recruit early
1: Do not recruit early while the other coach recruits early
| Coach B | |||
| Recruit early | Do not recruit early | ||
| Coach A | Recruit early | 2,3 | 4,1 |
| Do not recruit early | 1,4 | 3,2 | |
In this setup the total payoffs for both coaches recruiting early or not recruiting early are equal, but Coach B gets a worse payoff from not recruiting early, regardless of what Coach A does so they will decide to recruit early. Similar to the situation described in the previous scenario, Coach A has no choice but to recruit early to avoid the lowest payoff. Thus the Nash equilibrium is the scenario where both coaches recruit early, and the coach that respects the legislation ends up worse off than the coach that does not respect the legislation.
Case 3: Both coaches do not respect the legislation
Suppose that now coach A does not respect the legislation and has the same payoff as the non-respecting Coach B from the previous scenario.
| Coach B | |||
| Recruit early | Do not recruit early | ||
| Coach A | Recruit early | 3,3 | 4,1 |
| Do not recruit early | 1,4 | 2,2 | |
In this setup recruiting early is the dominant strategy for both coaches as this nets them a higher payoff than not recruiting early, regardless of what the other coach does. Thus the nash equilibrium is the scenario where both coaches recruit early and both end up better off than if they did not recruit early.
From these three scenarios, it is clear that recruiting early is the Nash equilibrium, regardless of one’s view on the legislation. This proves that the legislation is ultimately ineffective at stopping coaches from recruiting early and in one case, can even penalize the coach who does choose to respect the legislation if the other coach does not. It was also observed that the best outcome is for both coaches to respect the legislation and not recruit early. To prevent coaches from taking the mindset of wanting to disrespect the legislation, the NCAA could increase the penalties for being caught recruiting early. The penalty, however, will have to be balanced with the fact that if a coach is unable to adequately recruit for their team, their team will generate less income for their school and ultimately for the NCAA. Perhaps, one day, there will be a system in which all coaches unilaterally decide to respect the legislation but until that day, the NCAA will have to busy itself with finding that balance between penalizing the coaches and letting their teams play.