How much money do schools spend on recruiting student athletes and where does your university stack up in comparison?
Using the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis, we examined 1,049 institutions over the 2003-2010 seasons to see how much each spend on student athlete recruiting. We found that spending increased an average of 45% across all divisions over that seven year period, or an average of $400 per athlete per year during that period, in both men’s and women’s sports.
While Division I-A spends the most by far, on both women and men, Division I-AAA usually spends more than I-AA, and both I-AA and I-AAA spend 32-42% of what I-A spends on men and 42-52% of what I-A spends on women. Divisions II and III usually spend between 4-9% of what I-A spends on men and between 7-15% of what I-A spends on women. Here are the schools that are spending big on recruiting:
Finally, a look at recruiting spending by gender, across divisions:
