I remember growing up in a house full of cousins, constantly running around and competing in various sports. Cookouts, tailgates, and quality time is centered around sporting events. So, for many, it is a dream to play sports at the highest levels in front of family and friends. I was fortunate enough to get the chance and have some insight on how to get there. Yet, the recruitment process is different for everyone, and the impact social media has had on recruiting is unprecedented. I would like to focus my research for this semester on collegiate recruiting, mainly for football and basketball.
At the start of the summer, an NIL agreement was accepted by the NCAA for collegiate athletes, allowing them to profit off their name, image, and likeness. My friends and I, although already behind the curve, wanted to start a business to help young recruits get to their dream school and work with top athlete on the business side of the sports. However, recruiting is a big part of signing athletes, and the business is built on the idea of attracting young athletes to trust us to handle their projects and profits. The end goal is to recruit not just athletic talent, but all types of artistic and athletic talent. In order to do so, I’d like to start with getting to know more about the collegiate recruiting process.
I would like to measure several units, but the main one being dollar amounts. I have heard stories from my dad, and other ESPN’s Thirty for Thirty specials that indicate big dollar amounts in recruiting violations. I want to study money allocations to these student athletes and study the new disparity collegiate athletes will have with the new NIL agreement. Some more well-known recruits will have access to larger resources than others. How does this disparity effect college sports as a whole?
The goal is to be a little more familiar with the recruiting process; what attracts young recruits; how to seek good recruits that will make great use of their NIL; and finally how can I use this information to kick start a talent agency?
This sounds a little more like a personal research project rather than an academic research project. Consider whether you’re able to shift the audience from your own curiosity and perspective to other athletes who would benefit from this knowledge. As you consider how you might use this research to help you start a talent agency, think more generally about how the research you conduct might help any collegiate athlete not planning to play professionally after college to start a talent agency. What kinds of information about the recruiting process would you need learn? Who or what are the authorities who can provide that information? How will you capture that information from multiple people and seek to consolidate and synthesize ideas toward generalized knowledge? The NIL rule makes it harder to answer some of those questions because it’s so new, but that’s where original research — a survey of current student athletes seeking to use the NIL to capitalize on their status — can help you fill in blanks that rules, policies, and experience may not provide. Seek to more specific identify what you want to learn, regardless of application — the goal of generalized research knowledge is that it can be used across multiple contexts and purposes, not just a single goal.