Every year the National Football League (NFL) holds a draft where teams that have the worst records in the previous season are given the first opportunity to acquire the most talented players from colleges all over the nation, in a reverse-order pick system. The team’s ability to correctly identify and select players from this pool is essential in determining the effectiveness of the draft. The goal then of the draft would be to increase the competitiveness of the league and increase the chances that a team with a bad record the previous year will have a better one in the following season. The NFL Combine is an event held before the draft where prospective athletes showcase their skills in a few areas to increase their chances of being drafted. Most players drafted are offered a four-year contract where they can choose to sign again with the same team or another after the contract is up. This paper uses data from the players’ collegiate performances and performance in the NFL Scouting Combine to determine what affects a NFL team executive in their decision making process on draft order.

Thesis advisor: Christopher Maxwell / Historically underpriced, tickets for shows and sports games are frequently purchased just for the intent of resale at a higher value. This action has helped facilitate the creation of a large online secondary market for event tickets. Trying to capture the excess demand left by primary sellers, online ticket brokers often drastically inflate prices from face value. Using data from Ace Ticket from the second half of the 2011 NFL season, this thesis examines what factors drive ticket price movement. By splitting the effects into a team strength component and a days until the contest component, this study finds two major factors correlated with changes in ticket prices. The results show that, while playoff chances are the best proxy for team strength, the days until the game element (in particular the last week before a contest) has the most significant effect on prices. Often dropping prices by over 50 percent, ticket brokers scramble to make a sale during the last week. Although individual NFL teams can aggressively price their tickets to capture more revenue immediately from the primary market, this analysis shows that they may not be able to compete with ticket brokers who can adjust prices daily without the fear of alienating fans / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics.

This paper explores the correlation between the recruit ratings of football players coming out of high school and their future levels of success in the NFL. Specifically, I look at a player’s star rating, numerical rating, and overall rank within his high school graduating class, according to 247Sports’s Composite Rating system, as the key variables for a player’s recruit rating. I measure NFL success by a player’s position in the NFL draft specific to both round and overall pick, average games played per season over his NFL career, highest annual cash earnings during his NFL career, and average Approximate Value per season in the NFL. Results indicate a significant relationship between recruit ratings and NFL success only when considering NFL draft selection as the measure for success. Broadly, recruit ratings don’t appear to correlate with success in the NFL.

There are 32 teams in the National Football League all competing to be the best by creating the strongest roster possible. The problem of evaluating talent has created extreme competition between teams in the form of a rookie draft and a fiercely competitive veteran free agent market. The difficulty with player evaluation is due to the noise associated with measuring a particular player’s value. The intent of this paper is to create an algorithm for identifying the inefficiencies in pricing in these player markets. In particular, this paper focuses on the veteran free agent market for offensive linemen in the NFL. NFL offensive linemen are difficult to evaluate empirically because of the significant amount of noise present due to an inability to measure a lineman’s performance directly. The algorithm first uses a machine learning technique, k-means cluster analysis, to generate a comparative set of offensive lineman. Then using that set of comparable offensive linemen, the algorithm flags any lineman that vary significantly in earnings from their peers. It is in this fashion that the algorithm provides relative valuations for particular offensive lineman.

This paper examines the efficiency of pricing in the NFL point spread betting market, as hypothesized by the Efficient Market Hypothesis, through both statistical and economic tests. This market provides a simpler framework to test such economic hypotheses than conventional financial markets. Using a larger sample size than past literature, this paper finds that while the market is efficient in the aggregate sense, there are still some profit opportunities which imply pricing inefficiencies.

Over the years there have been a lot of undrafted free agents that have had successful careers in the NFL. The monopsony structure for rookies entering the NFL and the fact that undrafted free agents get to pick what team they play for suggests that there is an advantage in not getting picked in the draft. To explore this possibility, this paper compares the probabilities of remaining in the NFL for undrafted free agents and seventh round draft picks through logit regressions and survival analysis. In doing so, this paper describes the processes the NFL takes in order to find the most elite talent and how they distribute the talent throughout the whole league. The results find that undrafted free agents have a higher probability of exiting at the beginning of a career when compared with seventh round draft picks, but there is evidence that those probabilities start to converge later in careers. Additionally, there is evidence that there are NFL teams and position groups that do better and worse in retaining undrafted free agents, suggesting that there is a way to take advantage in going undrafted.

The 1993 Collective Bargaining Agreement changed the way that the National Football League operated with its player contracts. With the introduction of the salary cap and free agency players were given more freedom in where they took their talents while keeping the competitive balance of the league intact. There have been revisions and changes since the 1993 landmark CBA, specifically the 2011 CBA created changes mostly in the way that rookie salary and contract regulations function. This paper looks at whether the policy changes affected the competitive balance of the National Football League. Looking at point differential, competitive fairness, and winning percentage we found that the newest CBA did not create any significant changes in the competitive fairness of the league.

The National Football League (NFL) stands as one of the most visible and dominant organizations within American popular culture. However, despite being at the pinnacle of its popularity and the precipice of its seemingly last obstacle of international expansion, the last decade has seen the league confronting a series of crises that have destabilized and challenged the previously coherent meanings of the sport put out by the league and broadly recirculated within popular discourses. Propelled by these crises, the previously accepted framing of the league as “America's game” has come under increased scrutiny as media, citizens, and public officials critically reevaluate the role and merits of the league in contemporary American society. In this project I examine three cases situated in or around these crises: (1) the increased awareness of the medical dangers of playing the game, (2) the emergence of luxury stadiums, and (3) the league's philanthropic efforts. These case are an important heuristic lens for examining contemporary tensions between the NFL, identity, community, and commerce. As the league increasingly positions itself as a global media and sport corporation, it is upsetting and reshaping its historical localisms: the relationships to its fans, the cities that host its teams, and even the country which it calls home. Furthermore, the economic pressures of continual capitalist expansion as guided by neoliberal restructuring—favoring privatization, the primacy of unregulated markets, and ideologies of individual determination—require the incessant commodification of not only the NFL and its players, but also its constructed meanings. In examining these cases, this dissertation establishes and analyzes the often contradictory and contested motivations, aspirations, and meanings of the league in contemporary U.S. society.

No description available.

Berri and Simmons (2009) investigate the relationship between the NFL Combine and the NFL Draft. They find that a quarterback’s performance in the Combine can have a significant impact on that player’s draft position. However, they find that no known aspect of a quarterback before they are drafted is an indicator of success in the NFL. I examine if these relationships exist for the Running Back position. I find similar results to Berri and Simmons: that performance in the Combine does have an effect on that player’s draft position, but that no aspect of a running back’s pre-draft characteristics can be seen as a sign of future NFL success.