Research

The NCAA as a Cartel: Characterisitcs of Rules, Violations and Penalties

I study the National Collegiate Athlete Association (NCAA) as a cartel based on several stylized facts I observe in hand-collected infractions data. Specifically, data patterns indicate (1) the NCAA punishes violations with sanctions and not competition, (2) penalties are uniform across all sports, (3) infractions are correlated with sport-level revenue. I highlight that these and other features are not consistent with canonical models of cartels. Therefore, I construct a theoretical model that consists of an agreement that uses a homogeneous wage cap and fine for heterogeneous sports. The cartel faces a tradeoff in dissuading deviation among higher revenue sports and encouraging participation among lower revenue sports. If full participation is required, the agreement may not prevent deviation among higher revenue sports.

Work in Progress