Evaluating the NCAA’s Responsiveness to Tampering in the NIL Era

Recent and significant changes in college athletics have led to an increase in the number of athletes who transfer between universities. This requires college coaches to expend significant effort retaining key athletes, especially in the face of widespread “tampering”—recruiting athletes enrolled at other universities who are not in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) transfer portal. Despite NCAA rules explicitly forbidding it, coaches have been outspoken regarding the prevalence of tampering, with some going so far as to publicly beg the NCAA to more strictly enforce its anti-tampering rules. This Essay scrutinizes whether the oft-maligned NCAA has been responsive to coaches’ concerns regarding tampering.

Specifically, the Essay examines trends in data regarding recent NCAA enforcement actions to determine whether the NCAA is utilizing the resources at its disposal to pursue and penalize tampering coaches.