Document Type
Working Paper
Date
4-2026
Keywords
Transfer Portal, Labor-labor Substitution, College Recruiting, NCAA Litigation Shocks
Language
English
Funder(s)
Center for Research in Intercollegiate Athletics
Acknowledgements
We extend a special thank you to Benjamin Posmanick and Raymond Sauer for their thorough feedback, which substantially improved the quality of the manuscript. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge grant funding from the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Center for Research in Intercollegiate Athletics, which supported this project.
Disciplines
Labor Economics | Other Economics | Sports Management
Description/Abstract
College football's labor market has been transformed by litigation-driven regulatory change eliminating long-standing mobility restrictions. Central to this transformation is a new roster construction dilemma — whether to acquire experienced collegiate talent through the transfer portal or invest in traditional high school recruiting. Using a fixed effects panel of 127 Football Bowl Subdivision programs across six recruiting cycles (2019–2024), we examine whether schools substitute transfers for high school recruits. Three findings emerge. First, portal activity is associated with reduced three-star recruiting but no relationship with four-star or five-star prospects, with substitution driven by quantity rather than quality. Second, substitution is concentrated among non-elite Power 5 programs, with the clearest inverse relationships between transfer acquisitions and three-star recruiting. Third, substitution patterns evolved: a positive relationship between outgoing transfers and three-star recruiting emerged only after the NCAA's one-time transfer exception, suggesting schools began planning around anticipated departures once portal activity normalized.
Recommended Citation
Simion, Adrian M.; Losak, Jeremy M.; and Bush, Catalina, "A Labor Market Unleashed: College Football Labor Substitution in the Transfer Portal Era" (2026). Sport Management - All Scholarship. 71.
https://surface.syr.edu/sportmanagement/71
Source
submission
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
