States That Legalize Marijuana See Higher College Basketball Recruitment
New Study Reveals Mixed Effects of Marijuana Legalization on College Sports Recruitment.
Marijuana legalization boosts college basketball recruitment but harms football recruitment, according to a new study.
The research suggests that marijuana legalization is an "important, but complex, driver of college sports recruiting." For college basketball, teams in states with legal cannabis see an average improvement of 3.7 slots in recruiting rankings. "In absolute terms, being located in a state with legal marijuana has an effect on recruiting that is 50 percent as strong as having a new coach," the study states.
Conversely, cannabis legalization is associated with poorer recruitment outcomes when it comes to football teams. There, recruitment rankings average 2.9 slots worse for colleges located in legal states compared to “otherwise similar institutions” that haven’t legalized for adult-use. The study did not use survey data from individual athletes, so the explanations for these findings are speculative.
One hypothesis is that the difference between football and basketball recruitment could be related to the marijuana policies of the NFL and NBA. Historically, the NFL imposed harsher financial penalties for positive cannabis tests, which could end a marginal player's career, while the NBA had a more lenient stance.
“Given the NBA’s relatively lax stance on marijuana, it seems feasible that NBA-hopeful prospects may be more willing to use the drug in college, while future NFL players have a greater incentive to steer clear of weed,” the study says.
The authors argue that “This could explain why basketball recruiting is improved for colleges in a state with legal recreational marijuana.” In any case, they said the results “have predictive powers regarding the future of college athletics.”
