Is Corruption Beneficial? An Analysis of NCAA Men’s Basketball Programs
Introduction:
An issue that has recently come to the eyes of the NCAA is the issue of regulating illicit incentivizing of recruits to attend certain schools. An environment in which some schools are more able to land top recruits seemingly creates an unfair playing field for all schools in the NCAA. This paper will look into a history of how people have responded to punishment through relevant literature and measure if corrupt schools benefit in their corruption as well as offer recommendation on how to best deal with illicit incentivizing. Through a recent and in depth FBI probe, many NCAA men’s division one basketball programs have been linked to recruiting violations through knowledge of amateurism and offering cash incentives to recruits, players, and their families. While the details of the FBI probe only encompass violations going back to 2015, we are going to assume that schools linked to the FBI probe allegations have been involved in corrupt violations encompassing all years of data obtained. As most of the schools linked to corrupt actions are in the power five conferences (Big 10, Big 12, ACC, Pac 12, SEC), this analysis will include schools listed in the FBI probe and remaining schools from power five conferences. Through using data from the US Department of Education[footnoteRef:1] that includes men’s basketball teams financial figures and win/loss data from Sports Reference[footnoteRef:2], an analysis of changes in team’s finances and performance will be done comparing differences between schools involved in corruption and schools not linked to corruption allegations to determine if there are any financial or performance based results that favor being involved in corrupt activities. [1: https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/] [2: https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/]
Literature Review:
Through an analysis of relevant literature, it seems that having been caught and punished in illicit activities is outweighed by the possibility of the rewards through criminal activities. In Punishment and Deterrence: Evidence from Drunk Driving by Benjamin Hansen and Estimating the Economic Model of Crime: Employment Versus Punishment Effects by Samuel L. Myers Jr., there is a disagreement in what may deter repeat offenses. Hansen’s paper analyzes the likelihood of recidivism of drunk driving in Oregon through measurements of repeat offenses. In this work, he finds evidence that there are larger decreases in recidivism after each additional violation of drunk driving (Oregon law gives higher punishment with each offense and an even harsher punishment for aggravated DUIs (BAC > .15)) with note of an even larger decrease in recidivism of offenders who had an aggravated DUI. However, Hansen’s study is of people who are not involved in a high reward scenario, but are making decisions with limited benefit while inebriated. Thus, it is not surprising that recidivism is lowered in dr...
