IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ordeca/v14y2017i4p261-273.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Online and Off the Field: Predicting School Choice in College Football Recruiting from Social Media Data

Author

Listed:
  • Kristina Gavin Bigsby

    (Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Informatics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242)

  • Jeffrey W. Ohlmann

    (Department of Management Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242)

  • Kang Zhao

    (Department of Management Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242)

Abstract

This study explores predictors of school choice decisions in American college football recruitment. We combine data about individual athletes’ recruiting activities with social media data to predict which school the athlete will choose among those that have offered him a scholarship. While previous works have approached school choice as a rational decision process, our results indicate that a bounded rationality model incorporating social factors and heuristics may be more appropriate. We explore how the actions taken by athletes during recruitment can be interpreted as early signals of athletes’ preferences and find that models incorporating social media features consistently outperform the baseline model with only off-line recruiting features. In addition to better understanding the school choice decision, this work can help coaches to effectively allocate recruiting resources and inform social media strategies during recruitment.

Suggested Citation

  • Kristina Gavin Bigsby & Jeffrey W. Ohlmann & Kang Zhao, 2017. "Online and Off the Field: Predicting School Choice in College Football Recruiting from Social Media Data," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 14(4), pages 261-273, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ordeca:v:14:y:2017:i:4:p:261-273
    DOI: 10.1287/deca.2017.0353
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1287/deca.2017.0353
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/deca.2017.0353?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nels Popp & David Pierce & Mary A. Hums, 2011. "A comparison of the college selection process for international and domestic student-athletes at NCAA Division I universities," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 176-187, April.
    2. J. Michael Dumond & Allen K. Lynch & Jennifer Platania, 2008. "An Economic Model of the College Football Recruiting Process," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(1), pages 67-87, February.
    3. Robin M. Hogarth & Natalia Karelaia, 2006. "Regions of Rationality: Maps for Bounded Agents," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 3(3), pages 124-144, September.
    4. Robert A. Dees & Scott T. Nestler & Robert Kewley, 2013. "WholeSoldier Performance Appraisal to Support Mentoring and Personnel Decisions," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 10(1), pages 82-97, March.
    5. Popp, Nels & Pierce, David & Hums, Mary A., 2011. "A comparison of the college selection process for international and domestic student-athletes at NCAA Division I universities," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 176-187, May.
    6. Robert M. Bond & Christopher J. Fariss & Jason J. Jones & Adam D. I. Kramer & Cameron Marlow & Jaime E. Settle & James H. Fowler, 2012. "A 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization," Nature, Nature, vol. 489(7415), pages 295-298, September.
    7. Michael Spence, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(3), pages 355-374.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ali E. Abbas & Jay Simon & Chris Smith, 2017. "Introduction to the Special Issue on Decision Analysis and Social Media," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 14(4), pages 227-228, December.
    2. Vicki M. Bier & Simon French, 2020. "From the Editors: Decision Analysis Focus and Trends," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 1-8, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matt Ryan Huml & N David Pifer & Caitlin Towle & Cheryl R Rode, 2019. "If we build it, will they come? The effect of new athletic facilities on recruiting rankings for power five football and men's basketball programs," Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 1-18, January.
    2. Philip X Fuchs & Mojca Doupona & Kinga Varga & Marta Bon & Cristina Cortis & Andrea Fusco & Loriana Castellani & Niko Niemisalo & Heikki Hannola & Patrice Giron & Jörg Förster & Laura Capranica & Herb, 2021. "Multi-national perceptions on challenges, opportunities, and support structures for Dual Career migrations in European student-athletes," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-18, June.
    3. Yiannis Nikolaidis, 2015. "Building a basketball game strategy through statistical analysis of data," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 227(1), pages 137-159, April.
    4. Lin, Hsin-Chen & Bruning, Patrick F., 2024. "Guidelines for sponsorship signaling within socially complex markets," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 19-30.
    5. Jesse Bricker & Andrew Hanson, 2013. "The Impact of Early Commitment on Games Played: Evidence from College Football Recruiting," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(4), pages 971-983, April.
    6. Ferdinand Thies & Sören Wallbach & Michael Wessel & Markus Besler & Alexander Benlian, 2022. "Initial coin offerings and the cryptocurrency hype - the moderating role of exogenous and endogenous signals," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 32(3), pages 1691-1705, September.
    7. Anders Gustafsson, 2019. "Busy doing nothing: why politicians implement inefficient policies," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 282-299, September.
    8. Michael Waldman, 1990. "A Signalling Explanation for Seniority Based Promotions and Other Labor Market Puzzles," UCLA Economics Working Papers 599, UCLA Department of Economics.
    9. Ivana Fellini & Raffaele Guetto & Emilio Reyneri, 2018. "Poor Returns to Origin-Country Education for Non-Western Immigrants in Italy: An Analysis of Occupational Status on Arrival and Mobility," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(3), pages 34-47.
    10. Stuth, Stefan & Schorlemmer, Julia & Hennig, Marina & Allmendinger, Jutta, 2014. "Freiwilliges Engagement: Ein Patentrezept für Wiedereinsteigerinnen?," Discussion Papers, Presidential Department P 2014-007, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    11. Jitender Singh, 2016. "Quality of Public Goods, Public Policy and Human Development: A State-wise Analysis," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 10(2), pages 215-235, August.
    12. Thomas de Haan & Theo Offerman & Randolph Sloof, 2015. "Money Talks? An Experimental Investigation Of Cheap Talk And Burned Money," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1385-1426, November.
    13. Marco Pecoraro, 2014. "Is There Still a Wage Penalty for Being Overeducated But Well-matched in Skills? A Panel Data Analysis of a Swiss Graduate Cohort," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(3), pages 309-337, September.
    14. Josse Delfgaauw & Robert Dur, 2008. "Incentives and Workers' Motivation in the Public Sector," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(525), pages 171-191, January.
    15. Douglas Cumming & Lars Hornuf & Moein Karami & Denis Schweizer, 2023. "Disentangling Crowdfunding from Fraudfunding," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(4), pages 1103-1128, February.
    16. Maïlys Korber, 2019. "Does Vocational Education Give a Labour Market Advantage over the Whole Career? A Comparison of the United Kingdom and Switzerland," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 202-223.
    17. Andonie, Costel & Kuzmics, Christoph & Rogers, Brian W., 2019. "Efficiency-based measures of inequality," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 60-69.
    18. Kim, Sang-Joon & Bae, John & Oh, Hannah, 2019. "Financing strategically: The moderation effect of marketing activities on the bifurcated relationship between debt level and firm valuation of small and medium enterprises," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 663-681.
    19. Kampelmann, Stephan & Rycx, François, 2012. "The impact of educational mismatch on firm productivity: Evidence from linked panel data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 918-931.
    20. Benson, Rebecca & von Hippel, Paul T. & Lynch, Jamie L., 2018. "Does more education cause lower BMI, or do lower-BMI individuals become more educated? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 370-377.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ordeca:v:14:y:2017:i:4:p:261-273. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.