West Virginia University research has revealed that college football coaches' paychecks influence the quality of the players they're able to recruit.

"College football coach salaries at big-time programs have increased substantially in recent years," said Brad Humphreys, professor of economics at the WVU John Chambers College of Business and Economics. "We showed one reason for the increase is that colleges can recruit better athletes when they can offer them great coaches—and great coaches command higher salaries."

Humphreys and professor Jane Ruseski have published their results in the journal Applied Economics.

"For decades, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, hasn't allowed colleges or universities to compete for student-athletes on a price basis," Humphreys explained. "Instead, the NCAA limited athletes' compensation to the cost of attending college and schools began competing to attract players in non-monetary ways.

"That could mean lavish practice facilities or larger stadiums, or it could mean higher-quality coaches. Our work is the first to show that this non-price-based competition for athletes happened in an industry where no such competition was thought to exist."

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