Examining Practices within Recruiting Services and the Broader College Athletic Recruiting Industry
Project Author
Issue Date
2025-04-18
Authors
Crawford, Jonmarick
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First Reader
Tompkins, Joseph F.
Additional Readers
Devries, Melody
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Abstract
This project investigates the role of recruiting services within the overall ecosystem of college athletic recruitment, specifically the commodification of high school athletes in the post–Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) era. The project uses ethnographic methods of semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and survey analysis to examine how recruiting services can function as gatekeepers to opportunity while reinforcing existing socioeconomic and racial inequalities. Building upon Hextrum's (2021) and Van Rheenen's (2012) work, the project considers the systemic correlation of suburban access to athletic resources and the market logic of recruitment services. With this project, I identify a pattern of marketing predicated on a sense of urgency, opaque pricing structures, and the strategic exploitation of visibility as a commodity to be traded. Through grounded qualitative analysis, this study demonstrates how recruitment services are involved in stratifying athletic opportunity, often masking structural exclusion beneath promises of individualized advancement.
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Major
Communication and Cultural Studies
Department
Communication, Media, and Performance