Utilizing Marketing Principles in Collegiate Football Recruiting Matias Cerda Honors Thesis Undergraduate in Marketing Advisor: Dr. Richard Lutz April 16, 2012 Abstract: College athletics has transformed from a set of recreational sports to a multi-billion dollar industry with the advent of television contracts, school trademarks, sponsorships, and ticket sales. As a result, the process for recruiting top high school athletes is more competitive than ever before. It is vital that collegiate coaches are able to attract top high school athletic prospects to attend their schools so that their athletic programs can shine in the national spotlight. A university’s ability to market its athletic program to a high school senior can be very difficult when there are 335 other Division I universities attempting to sell their schools as well. This thesis examines how marketing principles can be successfully executed during the recruitment of a top high school football prospect by university athletic departments. It explores athletic programs that excel at recruiting high school football stars, and delves deeper into how the University of Florida’s football program maintains such a high caliber recruiting class year after year from interviews with its players as well as with the university’s Director of On Campus Recruiting, Brendan Donovan. In addition, current trends in the collegiate football recruiting process will be discussed in detail along with the advantages and disadvantages of marketing to high school athletes. This thesis argues that marketing plays an integral role in the recruitment of athletes for intercollegiate athletics. Those collegiate coaches who utilize unique marketing tactics have an important advantage in the process of selling their schools to top high school prospects. Table of Contents I. Introduction………………………………………………………………………....… 2 A. Purpose………………………………………………………………….…………… 2 B. Recruiting Athletes vs. Recruiting Employees………………………….………....... 4 C. Definitions…………………………………………………………………………… 5 D. History of College Athletics and Recruiting……………………………………….... 6 E. Anatomy of the Recruiting Process………………………………………………….. 7 II. Utilizing Marketing Principles In Recruiting………………………………………..... 9 A. Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning………………………………………….... 9 B. Creating a Unique Brand For Collegiate Athletic Programs……………………...… 12 C. Integrating Promotion Into Recruiting………………………………………………. 13 1. Personal Selling…………………………………………………………………….. 14 2. Strategic Advertising……………………………………………………………….. 15 D. Recruiting Expenditures of Elite Collegiate Athletic Programs…………………….. 17 E. Recruiting Insight: University of Florida Football Players & Director of On Campus Recruiting, Brendan Donovan……………………………………………… 18 F. Current Recruiting Issues……………………………………………………………. 21 1. Recruiting Violations………………………………………………….…………….. 21 2. Financial Inequality…………………………………………………………………. 22 3. Paying College Athletes…………………………………………………………….. 23 G. Advantages of Marketing in Recruiting…………………………………….……….. 24 1. Relationship-Building………………………………………………………….….... 24 2. Communicating the Value Proposition………………………………………….….. 24 3. Evaluation of Recruit Fit…………………………………………………………… 25 H. Disadvantages of Marketing in Recruiting…………………………...…….………... 25 1. Manipulation of High School Recruits……………………………………………… 25 2. Financial Inequality Among Football Programs………………………………….…. 26 3. Recruiting Clutter………………………………………………………………..…... 27 III. Conclusion and Recommendations…………………………………………….….... 27 IV. Bibliography/Appendices…………………………………………….…………...... 30 1 Introduction Purpose Every university’s athletic department strives to be one of the few schools that end up in a top recruited high school football player’s consideration set. As a result of the recent transformation of intercollegiate athletics from recreational to a multi-billion dollar industry, universities and their respective athletic departments must now compete even more ferociously for these top football stars. The result of enticing highly recruited athletes to attend their school is that the stars will shine on the field, bringing positive publicity to the university. In fact, athletic success is generally thought to benefit schools in two ways: by increasing donations to the school and by increasing the pool of applicants for admission (Piccinini, 25). Therefore, as competition for top athletes intensifies, and as challenges associated with recruitment increase, universities must develop and employ recruiting strategies based upon attributes that student-athletes identify as important to their decision-making process (Judson, James, and Aurand 23-40). Marketing is a vital component of the recruiting process for universities and their coaches. Those coaches who understand the importance that marketing has on a recruit’s decision-making process will be much more likely to connect with, and most likely win over, the desired athlete due to the hard work that is required to learn about what athletes want in their collegiate experience. Each high school recruit is a unique individual. Therefore, each of these highly sought-after recruits is a target market of one for universities to approach. Collegiate athletic programs will benefit their recruiting effectiveness by making use of the fact that there is an 2 advantage when they cater to the individual needs of each recruit, rather than using the same tactics on every desired athlete. The purpose of this paper is to examine how top universities successfully apply marketing principles during the recruitment of a top high school football prospect. It is very interesting to approach the recruiting process by taking an in depth look at the considerable amount of marketing that is utilized by today’s most successful collegiate football programs as well as how recruits respond to these marketing strategies. This paper will provide a basic comparison between the recruiting process used by university athletic departments and businesses, including the history of the practice and how marketing techniques have changed over the years as a recruiting tool within intercollegiate athletics. Then it will examine a detailed explanation of the recruiting process, describe how certain marketing tactics are tied into the recruiting process of top recruits, present which universities consistently dominate at marketing toward high school football recruits, and further explore the financials of these top universities’ marketing and recruiting expenditures in comparison to less successful athletic programs. Additionally, this paper will provide insight from interviews with both players and the Director of On Campus Recruiting for the University of Florida football team to compare their responses on the importance of marketing during the recruiting process as well as what they believe to be the most important factors in addition to their decision-making unit that influences recruits to decide on a particular athletic program. Next, it will detail current trends of marketing in the recruiting process for universities as well as mention advantages and disadvantages of marketing toward high school athletes. Finally, this paper will conclude that recruiting and 3 marketing to high school athletes coincide to a large extent, and that university athletic programs can positively impact their recruiting effectiveness by engaging in similar detailed marketing tactics mentioned throughout the paper. It will recommend guidelines for ensuring that intercollegiate athletic programs integrate a detailed marketing strategy in order to effectively recruit top athletic prospects. Recruiting Athletes vs. Recruiting Employees Before moving forward in examining how collegiate athletic programs utilize marketing techniques to recruit top high school athletes, let us consider how this paper can be applied to a business that is recruiting employees of its own. Attracting high-performing applicants is a critical component of personnel selection and overall organizational success (Chapman et al, 928-944). Just as collegiate athletic programs seek out the top recruits who can have a substantial impact on their teams, companies engage in the same process in order to fill open positions within their organizations. Often, companies battle for the same candidates when seeking to hire top executives, similar to how dominant football programs battle when recruiting high school athletes. According to a study by Chapman et al, it has been found that there are six broad factors typically examined as predictors of applicant attraction: job and organizational characteristics, recruiter characteristics, perceptions of the recruitment process, perceived fit, perceived alternatives, and hiring expectancies (Chapman et al, 928-944). Although recruiting top athletic prospects is not perfectly comparable to companies recruiting new employees, Chapman’s six significant predictors of applicant attraction also have a similar impact on the recruiting process of high school athletes. 4 Companies use various techniques to attract highly sought after candidates with realistic job previews, promising generous pensions, promising a certain level of control in a company, etc. In comparison to businesses and their recruitment practices, collegiate athletic programs also target the recruits that they deem most valuable. The collegiate athletic programs attempt to attract the most valuable recruits through the use of marketing tactics ranging from an official visit on campus to putting the recruit’s name on one of the