NCAA Scholarship Limits and Competitive Balance in College Football
This article examines the effects of scholarship limits on competitive balance in college
football. Hypothesizing that there has not been an increase in parity, the authors present a
model of competitive balance. Using two regression models, they attempt to evaluate the
measures of parity within college football since World War II (1946-2000) and rule
changes. Their first model uses margin of difference in scores, actual standard deviation
of wining percentages of all schools divided by the theoretical standard deviation,
Associated Press rankings including poll entrants, poll reentrants, total number of
different teams in the rankings over a given number of years, a Herfindahl-Hirschman
Index of concentration of poll appearances, and conference champions. The study found
mixed results when analyzing the regression models. It appears that within-year
competitive balance has decreased while competitive balance seems to increase when
measured with the Associated Press Top 20 poll. It appears that instead of increasing
competitive balance, scholarship limits achieve only a limitation on resources spent on
football. The second model evaluates voting trends of the 1991 NCAA roll-call vote to
reduce scholarships. Using variable such as age of the university, whether or not the
school is a state-supported university, tuition, enrollment, and whether or not the school
voted for or against a lower scholarship limit. They determined that age and enrollment
were not significant while membership in a major conference, public universities, and
tuition were all significant. The regression showed more successful teams are more likely
to vote for limits.
Data:
Model 1:
Variable Name
Description
MARGIN
The difference between the average score of the
winning teams in a year and the average score of
losing teams
ENTRANT
The actual standard deviation of winning
percentages of all Division I-A school in a year/ the
theoretical standard deviation
Teams appearing in the Associated Press rankings
after not appearing in any of the 5 previous years
HHI
Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) of concentration
of poll appearances
RATIO
Model 2
Variable Name
Description
MAJCONF
Dummy variable that equals one for schools voting
to reduce the limit of scholarships, 0 if voting no
Age in years of the university in 1992
Measure performance in the final Associated Press
poll
Dummy variable that equals one for state
supported universities, 0 for all others
In-state tuition in thousands of dollars
School's total enrollment for the 1991-1992
academic year in thousands
Dummy variable the equals one if a school was a
member of a major conference in 1992, 0 if not
CYES and CNO
Dummy variables that equal one for members of
conferences that voted for and against the lower
scholarship limit
PROBATE
Dummy variable that equals 1 for schools on NCAA
probation for football between 1953 and 1991
VOTE
AGE
AP and AP10
PUBLIC
TUITION
ENROLL
Sources of data is unclear
(Sutter, Daniel and Stephen Winkler. “NCAA Scholarship Limits and Competitive
Balance in College Football.” Journal of Sports Economics 4, No. 1 (2003): 3-18.