College Basketball Recruiting Costs 2019

[LLCoolCY]

Found this interesting, a complete rankings of public high-major conference schools based on their spending on recruiting during the 2019 fiscal year.

An Analysis Of College Basketball Recruiting Costs

For the first time in college basketball history, a program eclipsed the $1-million mark in reported recruiting expenses in a single fiscal year. During the 2019 fiscal year, Kentucky spent $1,073,985 on men’s basketball recruiting according to the university’s NCAA Financial Report.

athleticdirectoru.com

 

[ClonerJams]

How does Iowa spend that much when 3/4 of their players are legacies or related to the coach?

 

[Drew0311]

How does Iowa spend that much when 3/4 of their players are legacies or related to the coach?

Exactly. How much was Kenyon Murray and Mrs Mcaffrey charging Fran to call them and ask if their sons could come play for him? I mean she is already in the house.

 

[enisthemenace]

“Recruiting expenses, as defined by the NCAA Financial Report forms that schools fill out annually, “input transportation, lodging and meals for prospective student-athletes and institutional personnel on official and unofficial visits, telephone call charges, postage and such. Include value of use of institution’s own vehicles or airplanes as well as in-kind value of loaned or contributed transportation.”

With the definition above, how in the hell does one school spend roughly 4 times the amount of another school (Kentucky $1.07M vs Iowa State at $276K)?

 

[MJ271]

Really interesting; thanks for sharing. Some other interesting notes from the article:

• Iowa State was the lowest in the Big 12; Texas Tech was the highest.
• The Big 12 had the highest average spending on recruiting of the Power 5 conferences and the Pac-12 was the lowest.
• Iowa had the third-highest gross increase and percent increase from FY 2018 to FY 2019.

I imagine costs can vary a lot from year to year depending on how large a class is. I'm definitely curious, though, about the breakdown of these costs for a school. Is most of the spending on transportation and lodging for coaches visiting/watching players? Do the big spenders just have extra staff devoted to monitoring social media and designing graphics or mailers?

 

[Shawker]

How does Iowa spend that much when 3/4 of their players are legacies or related to the coach?

 

[LLCoolCY]

“Recruiting expenses, as defined by the NCAA Financial Report forms that schools fill out annually, “input transportation, lodging and meals for prospective student-athletes and institutional personnel on official and unofficial visits, telephone call charges, postage and such. Include value of use of institution’s own vehicles or airplanes as well as in-kind value of loaned or contributed transportation.”

With the definition above, how in the hell does one school spend roughly 4 times the amount of another school (Kentucky $1.07M vs Iowa State at $276K)?

I am sure there are a lot of factors but on example of the difference is I believe Kentucky has a Charter Jet reserved for Cal to recruit. He has been known to fly in an out of a city in a day to see a recruit and get back home.
ISU doesn't have that type of recruiting benefit and thus cost for our coaches.

 

[JP4CY]

Nebraska is definitely not getting their $ worth.

 

[AuH2O]

ISU is efficient as hell, because they get targeted into a few guys, and other than Hamilton and Pierce, they've all been Iowa, ILL, WI and MO guys.

I haven't followed Iowa's recruiting, but it seemed like a few years ago that they were always going after these guys in all regions that they probably had no chance to get. The good Ulis, Trace Jackson Davis, etc. That probably gets expensive.

 

[isucyfan]

How does Iowa spend that much when 3/4 of their players are legacies or related to the coach?

Fertility treatments aren't cheap, especially for older parents. Gotta ensure Fran and Marge can still keep the recruiting pipeline open, if you know what I mean.