Much like coaches’ salaries, recruiting budgets are skyrocketing in Division I athletic departments, with scores of schools more than doubling their recruiting spending in the last 10 years.
A Chronicle of Higher Education study, reported by Florida Today, found that 21 schools spent more than $1 million a year on recruiting athletes. That number represents recruiting for all sports, and there’s no breakdown of spending on individual sports, but at every school with a football program, the bulk of the recruiting spending goes to football.
Tennessee leads the nation in recruiting costs and was the only school in the country that spent more than $2 million on recruiting during the 2006-07 school year. Notre Dame came in second, spending $1.8 million, with Florida third at $1.5 million. SEC schools generally spend more than schools in other conferences, with Auburn, Georgia and Arkansas among the top eight in recruiting spending, all spending well over $1 million a year.
At this point, I think everyone who follows “amateur” college football knows that it’s a big-money business, so this won’t come as a huge surprise. But it does serve as a reminder of how difficult it is for the have-nots in college football to catch up to the haves. The top programs stay on top in large part because they have the money to attract the top players. Is that how amateur athletics is supposed to work?
