IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jospec/v25y2024i4p472-506.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the Value of a Premium College Football Player: Evaluating the Literature

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremy M. Losak
  • Benjamin J. Posmanick
  • Raymond D. Sauer

Abstract

Over the past decade, the issue of player compensation in college sports has been the subject of several successful legal challenges. Athletes contend that the compensation they receive falls significantly short of the value they generate, attributing this gap to unlawful National Collegiate Athletic Association restrictions. Numerous tools exist in the sports economic literature that estimate the value of college athletes, with an emphasized focus toward premium college football players. In addition to providing updated estimate of player marginal revenue product (MRP), we review past and contemporary methodologies for estimating college player MRPs. We contend that, while presenting some evidence that restrictions on player compensation resulted in the extraction of the majority of the value generated by top college athletes, existing methods leave considerable uncertainty over the magnitude of exploitation.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy M. Losak & Benjamin J. Posmanick & Raymond D. Sauer, 2024. "On the Value of a Premium College Football Player: Evaluating the Literature," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(4), pages 472-506, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:25:y:2024:i:4:p:472-506
    DOI: 10.1177/15270025241233553
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15270025241233553
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/15270025241233553?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. Brian Mills & Jason Winfree, 2018. "Athlete Pay and Competitive Balance in College Athletics," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(2), pages 211-229, March.
    2. Matthew Philip Makofske, 2018. "Are you hiring Johnny Football or Johnny Doe? Uncertain labour quality and the measurement of monopsony in college football," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(22), pages 2415-2430, May.
    3. Devin G. Pope & Jaren C. Pope, 2009. "The Impact of College Sports Success on the Quantity and Quality of Student Applications," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(3), pages 750-780, January.
    4. Erin Lane & Juan Nagel & Janet S. Netz, 2014. "Alternative Approaches to Measuring MRP," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(3), pages 237-262, June.
    5. Heckman, James J. & Loughlin, Colleen P., 2021. "Are Student-Athletes Exploited?," IZA Discussion Papers 14857, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Brian L. Goff & H. Youn Kim & Dennis P. Wilson, 2017. "Estimating the market value of collegiate football players from professional factor shares," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 233-237, February.
    7. Krautmann, Anthony C, 1999. "What's Wrong with Scully-Estimates of a Player's Marginal Revenue Product," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(2), pages 369-381, April.
    8. Scully, Gerald W, 1974. "Pay and Performance in Major League Baseball," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(6), pages 915-930, December.
    9. Michael A. Leeds & Eva Marikova Leeds & Aaron Harris, 2018. "Rent Sharing and the Compensation of Head Coaches in Power Five College Football," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(2), pages 253-267, March.
    10. Peter K. Hunsberger & Seth R. Gitter, 2015. "What is a Blue Chip Recruit Worth? Estimating the Marginal Revenue Product of College Football Quarterbacks," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(6), pages 664-690, August.
    11. Schuckers Michael, 2011. "An Alternative to the NFL Draft Pick Value Chart Based upon Player Performance," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-14, May.
    12. F. Andrew Hanssen & Alexander Raskovich, 2020. "Does Vertical Integration Spur Investment? Casting Actors to Discover Stars during the Hollywood Studio Era," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(4), pages 631-666.
    13. Stephen A. Bergman & Trevon D. Logan, 2020. "Revenue per Quality of College Football Recruit," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(6), pages 571-592, August.
    14. Devin G. Pope & Jaren C. Pope, 2009. "The Impact of College Sports Success on the Quantity and Quality of Student Applications," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(3), pages 750-780, January.
    15. Brad R. Humphreys & Candon Johnson, 2020. "The Effect of Superstars on Game Attendance: Evidence From the NBA," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(2), pages 152-175, February.
    16. Michael A. Leeds & Ngoc Tram Nguyen Pham, 2020. "Productivity, Rents, and the Salaries of Group of Five Football Coaches," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(1), pages 3-19, January.
    17. Stacey L. Brook, 2021. "A Comparison of NCAA FBS Head Coaches Salary Determination From New and Modified Contracts," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(5), pages 491-513, June.
    18. Richard Borghesi, 2017. "Pay for play: the financial value of NCAA football players," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(46), pages 4657-4667, October.
    19. Blomquist, Soren & Dahlberg, Matz, 1999. "Small Sample Properties of LIML and Jackknife IV Estimators: Experiments with Weak Instruments," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(1), pages 69-88, Jan.-Feb..
    20. Brown, Robert W, 1993. "An Estimate of the Rent Generated by a Premium College Football Player," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(4), pages 671-684, October.
    21. John Charles Bradbury, 2019. "Determinants Of Revenue In Sports Leagues: An Empirical Assessment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 121-140, January.
    22. Craig Garthwaite & Jordan Keener & Matthew Notowidigdo & Nicole Ozminkowski, 2020. "Who Profits from Amateurism? Rent-Sharing in Modern College Sports," Working Papers 2020-117, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    23. Bradley Kemp Wilson & Agapitos Papagapitos, 2021. "The Diminishing Marginal Worth of Elite College Football Players," Journal of Economic Insight, Missouri Valley Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 1-20.
    24. Robert Brown, 2011. "Research Note: Estimates of College Football Player Rents," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(2), pages 200-212, April.
    25. Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio & Francesc Pujol, 2007. "Hidden monopsony rents in winner-take-all markets-sport and economic contribution of Spanish soccer players," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 57-70.
    26. Todd H. Kuethe & Mesbah Motamed, 2010. "Returns to Stardom: Evidence From U.S. Major League Soccer," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(5), pages 567-579, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Craig Garthwaite & Jordan Keener & Matthew J. Notowidigdo & Nicole F. Ozminkowski, 2020. "Who Profits From Amateurism? Rent-Sharing in Modern College Sports," NBER Working Papers 27734, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Matthew Philip Makofske, 2018. "Are you hiring Johnny Football or Johnny Doe? Uncertain labour quality and the measurement of monopsony in college football," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(22), pages 2415-2430, May.
    3. Peter K. Hunsberger & Seth R. Gitter, 2015. "What is a Blue Chip Recruit Worth? Estimating the Marginal Revenue Product of College Football Quarterbacks," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(6), pages 664-690, August.
    4. Stacey L. Brook, 2021. "A Comparison of NCAA FBS Head Coaches Salary Determination From New and Modified Contracts," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(5), pages 491-513, June.
    5. Richard Borghesi, 2017. "Pay for play: the financial value of NCAA football players," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(46), pages 4657-4667, October.
    6. Erin Lane & Juan Nagel & Janet S. Netz, 2014. "Alternative Approaches to Measuring MRP," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(3), pages 237-262, June.
    7. Rachel Scarfe & Carl Singleton & Adesola Sunmoni & Paul Telemo, 2024. "The age‐wage‐productivity puzzle: Evidence from the careers of top earners," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(2), pages 584-606, April.
    8. Brian Mills & Jason Winfree, 2018. "Athlete Pay and Competitive Balance in College Athletics," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(2), pages 211-229, March.
    9. Pelnar, Gregory, 2007. "Antitrust Analysis of Sports Leagues," MPRA Paper 5382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Michael A. Leeds & Eva Marikova Leeds & Aaron Harris, 2018. "Rent Sharing and the Compensation of Head Coaches in Power Five College Football," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(2), pages 253-267, March.
    11. Brent A. Evans & Joshua D. Pitts, 2018. "Cross-Sport Recruiting Effects in NCAA D1 Football and Basketball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(6), pages 820-842, August.
    12. Nicholas M. Watanabe & Grace Yan & Brian P. Soebbing, 2019. "Market disruption as a regime for athlete activism: An economic analysis of college football player protests," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(5), pages 600-612, December.
    13. Michael A. Leeds & Ngoc Tram Nguyen Pham, 2020. "Productivity, Rents, and the Salaries of Group of Five Football Coaches," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(1), pages 3-19, January.
    14. Brent A. Evans & Christopher Clark & Joshua D. Pitts, 2024. "The Effects of Marijuana Legalization on NCAA Men's Basketball Recruiting," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(2), pages 200-216, February.
    15. Craig McFarland & Peter A. Groothuis & Dennis Guignet, 2024. "The role of football win percentage on college applications for Power Five and Group of Five schools," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(3), pages 474-482, July.
    16. Richard Borghesi, 2018. "The Financial and Competitive Value of NCAA Basketball Recruits," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(1), pages 31-49, January.
    17. Austan Goolsbee & Chad Syverson, 2023. "Monopsony Power in Higher Education: A Tale of Two Tracks," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(S1), pages 257-290.
    18. John D. Burger & Stephen J. K. Walters, 2008. "The Existence and Persistence of a Winner's Curse: New Evidence from the (Baseball) Field," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(1), pages 232-245, July.
    19. Pedro Garcia‐del‐Barrio & Francesc Pujol, 2009. "The Rationality of Under‐employing the Best‐performing Soccer Players," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 23(3), pages 397-419, September.
    20. Julianne Treme & Samuel K. Allen, 2011. "Press Pass: Payoffs to Media Exposure Among National Football League (NFL) Wide Receivers," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(3), pages 370-390, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    marginal revenue product; football; college athletics; rents;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z22 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - Labor Issues
    • Z28 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - Policy
    • J40 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:sae:jospec:v:25:y:2024:i:4:p:472-506. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.