The Sports and Society Initiative
The Sports and Society Initiative
The Sports and Society Initiative
Mission Statement:
“The Sports and Society Initiative at Ohio State is devoted to
the development of a better understanding of the role of
amateur and professional sports in the economy and society
at large. Its goal is to promote high quality research related to
issues of societal concern in sports at all levels through
research grants, undergraduate and graduate training and
internships, the sponsorship of conferences and interaction
with policy makers in sports and related industries.”
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Who We Are
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Our Board of Directors
Janet Box-Steffensmeier
Archie Griffin
Matthew Mitten
Shaun Richard
Greg Strizek
Kristin Watt
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Trevon D. Logan, Ph.D.
Hazel C. Youngberg Distinguished
Professor of Economics
• Executive Board Member, North American
Association of Sports Economists
• Past President, National Economic
Association
• Winner, Alumni Award for Distinguished
Teaching
• Expert on the economics of college
football, college sports polls, and college and
professional sports betting markets
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Lucia L. Dunn, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
• Has taught on the faculties of
Purdue, Northwestern, and the
University of Florida where she
was the Director of the Business
School’s Survey Program
• Labor market expert who has
researched and published on
athletes’ productivity and
compensation
• Introduced the first Sports
Economics course at Ohio State in
2003
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Our affiliated faculty includes many other top
researchers from the social sciences and
related disciplines at Ohio State
Lawrence Baum, Professor of Political Science
Charles Emery, Professor of Psychology
Richard Jagacinski, Professor of Psychology
Nicole Kraft, Professor of Communications
Chris Knoester, Professor of Sociology
Gerald Kosicki, Professor of Communications
Zhong-Lin Lu, Professor of Psychology
Ellen Peters, Professor of Psychology
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The Sports and Society Initiative
The Sports and Society Initiative
The Sports and Society Initiative’s goal is to be
the home of cutting edge sports-related
research that will inform the current critical
debates taking place in policy and academic
circles, add to the student experience, and
enhance the academic reputation of The Ohio
State University.
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Given the enormous presence that sports has
taken in all areas of American life and Ohio
State’s reputation and prominence in sports,
this kind of initiative is a key way in which the
public can be made aware of the academic
research at Ohio State and where the
University’s profile can be enhanced.
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Ohio State does not currently have an
organized effort in this area. Many other
universities with these kinds of initiatives lack
our expertise, prominence, and reputation in
athletics and academics.
We seek to leverage our prominence in
athletics and the world-class academic
reputation we have at Ohio State to become
preeminent in this area.
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The Sports and Society Initiative
College Athletics is at a Crossroads
Clearly changes are coming in the
world of sports, especially at the
amateur level
*Some issues are already
getting scrutiny in the U.S.
Congress *
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The Sports and Society Initiative
House Resolution 275 – Introduced earlier
this year by Representative Rush of Illinois
“To establish a commission to
identify and examine issues of
national concern related to the
conduct of intercollegiate athletics,
to make recommendations for the
resolution of the issues, and for
other purposes.”
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Among the issues to be examined…
(quoting from HR #275)
• …how athletics affect the academic mission, academic integrity,
and credit worthiness of institutions of higher education
• …graduation rates of student athletes
• …expenditures of revenue, including compliance with title IX of the
Education Amendments of 1972, coaching salaries, and facilities
development
• …rules related to earnings and benefits by student athletes,
including the possibility of commercial compensation for the use of
the names, images, and likenesses of student athletes and
whether a student athlete may retain a personal representative to
negotiate on behalf of the student athlete
• …Federal judicial decisions that affect compensation for student
athletes or the right of student athletes to organize as a collective
bargaining unit
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The Sports and Society Initiative
ISSUE
Should student athletes
be able to unionize?
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The Sports and Society Initiative
ISSUE
Pressures leading to the use
of performance enhancing
drugs, even at the pre-high
school level
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Study in the Journal Pediatrics
(2012)
Of 2,800 middle and high school students
surveyed in Minnesota:
5 % had used steroids
1/3 had used “unhealthy” methods to
increase muscle mass.
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Other Pre-College
Issues
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Pay to Play
The Ohio High School Athletic Association
estimates that nearly half of Ohio schools
charged students fees to participate in
school sports in the 2010-11 school year.
This places an extra burden on lowincome families.
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The Sports and Society Initiative
ISSUE
Academic standards
and expectations for
student athletes
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The Sports and Society Initiative
ISSUE
Should student athletes
receive compensation –
and if so, how much?
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The Sports and Society Initiative
What is a college
athlete worth?
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The Sports and Society Initiative
This question is
actually two
related
questions…
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The Sports and Society Initiative
1.
2.
How much is a sport’s revenue
dependent upon success?
How important are players in
that success?
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The Sports and Society Initiative
In professional sports, economists
analyze individual player productivity
and then estimate a player’s value by
looking at the sum of the value of the
individual inputs.
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Some Big Problems:
1.
2.
We don’t have good measures of all
of the components that matter
(especially defense)
What about the players who rarely
or never play?
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The Sports and Society Initiative
1.
2.
3.
4.
Look at college football revenues
Look at how recruits are related to
performance
Infer the value of players by recruit
ranking
Discuss policy implications
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Football Revenues (by Conference)
• ACC – $22.4M
• Big 10 - $38.1M
• Big 12 - $31.8M
• Big East - $17.9M
• Pac 12 - $26.4M
• SEC - $44.3M
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Average Football “Profit” (by Conference)
Profit = Revenues – Expenses
• ACC – $7.1M
• Big 10 - $20.3M
• Big 12 - $16.4M
• Big East - $3.6M
• Pac 12 - $10.5M
• SEC - $25.7M
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Winning, Revenue, and Profit
Using data for all FBS football programs
from 2003 to 2013, I find that:
1) Each win is correlated with $1.64M in
revenue
2) Each win is correlated with $1.09M in
profit
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Winning, Revenue, and Profit
Using data for all FBS football programs
from 2003 to 2013, I find that:
3) A Bowl Game Appearance adds $8.1M
revenue, $4.3M profit
4) A Championship (BCS) appearance
adds $10.9M profit, $16.0M revenue
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Inferring Player Value
Bergman and Logan (Journal of Sports
Economics) collected individual recruit
data and matched it to on-field
performance
 Five star recruits increase the number
of wins and likelihood of a BCS
appearance (much) more than
four/three/two star recruits
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Inferring Player Value
Just taking the probabilities from Bergman
and Logan and using only wins and
BCS/Championship appearances:
Five Star Recruits - $898,880
Four Star Recruits - $217,310
Three Star Recruits - $50,140
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Inferring Player Value
Implications for 2015 Recruiting Classes:
Ohio State - $3.64M (~$14.7M)
Florida State - $6.92M (~$25.2M)
USC - $7.54M (~$24.8M)
Alabama - $7.11M (~$25.7M)
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Important Caveats
1) Paying players in proportion to their
productivity will eliminate the subsidies
in athletic departments
2) This only applies to sports programs
that generate revenues in excess of
their expenses. This does not apply to
the majority of college athletes, and to
no athletes at a number of universities
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Important Caveats
3) To regulate payments, institutional
cooperation will be more complex, and
limits on compensation would be akin
to “salary caps” in professional sports.
4) Arrangements for player compensation
may have significant effects on
competitive balance within and
between conferences and could impact
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revenues in the long term.
The Sports and Society Initiative
The Summer Fellows Program
•
•
•
This program will select student athletes to work as
research fellows during the summer to work closely
with SSI faculty on research projects.
This will give athletes research experiences tailored
to their interest, enhancing their academic experience
at Ohio State.
Works in concert with the Athletic Department’s Hire
a Buckeye program to develop skills that athletes will
use in the job market.
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The Sports and Society Initiative
The Summer Institute
• This program will provide young
people at the high school level a
broad view of career options
where they can channel their
enthusiasm for sports in a
realistic way.
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Roger Noll (1998)
• Present Value of additional lifetime earnings for college
football play was about $200,000
• Present Value of additional lifetime earnings for Pro play was
about $2,000,000.
• To have a chance of college play, a high school student will
devote about 2,000 hours of effort to football over 3 years.
• Given a 3% chance of a college scholarship and a 0.25 %
chance of a pro career --- then:
• The expected return for those 2,000 high school hours is
about $5.50 per hour.
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Summer Institute
• High school students will come to the Ohio State
campus to take part in special seminars on the many
rewarding careers that are possible in the sports
industry apart from play on the field.
• Careers in sports journalism and broadcasting,
statistical analysis, marketing, accounting, sports law,
etc.
• As part of our outreach mission, a significant number
of scholarships will be provided to deserving students
who would otherwise not have the means to take part
in the Summer Institute.
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The Sports and Society Initiative
Follow Us!
See the latest news on our website:
http://u.osu.edu/sportsandsociety/
Follow us on Twitter:
@sportssociety
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