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Do Colleges Get What They Pay For? Evidence on Football Coach Pay and Team Performance

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  • Gary J. Colbert
  • E. Woodrow Eckard

Abstract

We use a data set of Football Bowl Subdivision (Division-IA) universities to investigate the hypothesis that higher coach pay leads to improved team performance. Our analysis finds that pay and team performance are positively correlated and that, when schools change coaches, higher pay is associated with improved performance. The evidence suggests that additional rating points are increasingly valuable, perhaps over US$1 million for top teams. Our descriptive analysis reveals the median 2011 head coach pay of US$1.2 million, significant increases over our 2006-2011 study period, and large disparities among schools and conferences. We conclude that administrators perceive highly ranked football teams have significant value.

Suggested Citation

  • Gary J. Colbert & E. Woodrow Eckard, 2015. "Do Colleges Get What They Pay For? Evidence on Football Coach Pay and Team Performance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(4), pages 335-352, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:16:y:2015:i:4:p:335-352
    DOI: 10.1177/1527002513501679
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Malcolm Getz & John Siegfried, 2010. "What Does Intercollegiate Athletics Do To or For Colleges and Universities?," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 1005, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    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.
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    4. Devin G. Pope & Jaren C. Pope, 2014. "Understanding College Application Decisions," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(2), pages 107-131, April.
    5. Amy Farmer & Paul Pecorino, 2010. "Is the Coach Paid too Much?: Coaching Salaries and the NCAA Cartel," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 841-862, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Guodong Guo & Brad R. Humphreys & Qiangchang Wang & Yang Zhou, 2023. "Attractive or Aggressive? A Face Recognition and Machine Learning Approach for Estimating Returns to Visual Appearance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(6), pages 737-758, August.
    3. R. Todd Jewell, 2020. "NCAA Expenditure and Efficiency: Analyzing Generated and Allocated Revenue in the Football Bowl Subdivision," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(4), pages 363-390, May.
    4. E. Woodrow Eckard, 2017. "The Uncertainty-of-Outcome Hypothesis and the Industrial Organization of Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(3), pages 298-317, April.
    5. 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.

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