Geographic Bias in the NFL Draft, 1970-2009

Abstract

The popularity of the National Football League (NFL) and its product has increased steadily since the American Football League merged with the NFL in 1970. Today, the NFL is one of the wealthiest professional sports leagues in the world (Plunkett Research, 2009), and its annual draft is the most watched professional sports league draft on the planet (Nielsen Company, 2009). For NFL franchises, the draft is a critical ingredient for success on the field. With millions of dollars at stake, teams painstakingly evaluate potential draft picks on a number of physical and mental factors, and while a team?s draft success is often measured by the level of influence their selections have on the game, there remains an unexplored avenue of investigating a franchise?s draft behavior--geographic bias. This research examines the role that proximity has played in the selection of college football players among the twenty franchises that have operated continuously in one city since 1970.