Crime or Punishment? Enforcement of the NCAA Football Cartel

This paper presents theoretical and empirical evidence on the methods that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its member schools use to detect violations of its cartel agreement. Because it is difficult to find direct evidence of cheating we suggest that the volatility of a school\u27s winning percentage is used as a proxy by the NCAA rules has a detect violations. Empirical evidence also suggests that the enforcement of the NCAA rules has a redistributive effect that benefits consistent winners at the expense of up-and-coming schools