The Effectiveness of College Football Recruiting Ratings in Predicting Team Success: A Longitudinal Study
Research in Business and Economics Journal, 14, 4-22.
19 Pages Posted: 23 Aug 2019 Last revised: 29 Nov 2023
Date Written: 2021
Abstract
American college football is a multibillion-dollar industry for the 130 schools that play at the highest level. College football is unique in that it must recruit student athletes, unlike high school or pro football. An entire multimillion-dollar industry has developed to provide recruiting ratings and team-specific information for rabid fans. The question in this study is “Do recruiting rankings matter?” This study uses the 247Sports class ratings and team ratings to predict the future success of teams. The Sagarin final ratings are used as a proxy for team success. The results indicate that knowing recruiting rankings explains up to 36% of the variability of the Sagarin ratings.
Keywords: college football, college athletics, recruiting ratings, NCAA, Sagarin, student athlete
JEL Classification: Z20, Z23, I23
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation